On Saturday we decided to take a day trip out towards Arthur’s Pass. There were a couple spots that I had been to before that I wanted to show Mom, Dad, and Lindsey, and I thought if we had extra time we could fit in another short walk. First, we stopped at the Sheffield Pie Shop, which is famous for their meat pies. Since it was the morning, we decided to try to come back on the way home for meat pies and just stick to other baked goods.
On the drive to Arthur’s Pass
Then, we went to Castle Hill, the area covered with huge limestone rocks. You can look back at my past blog post to compare pictures from then versus now. This time, there was a bit of snow on the ground, so it was definitely more difficult to climb up the hill and onto some of the rocks. It was still fun to explore for a bit, though, and it was fun to watch some kids trying to sled down the little bit of snow that was on the ground.
After Castle Hill, we drove a few minutes down the road to Cave Stream. We got out and walked down the path so we could see the cave and stream, but it would have been much too cold to do the full walk, so we just went to check it out.
Cave Stream, but with snow this time
Next, we had a little more time in the afternoon so we drove further to Arthur’s Pass and did the walk to Devil’s Punchbowl Falls. This is a walk that takes about half an hour to a waterfall. It looked like it had snowed recently and was like a winter wonderland. The stairs were a bit slippery at times, but when we made it to the falls it was totally worth it. We spent some time admiring the waterfall and then headed back the same way we came.
On the way back to Christchurch, we stopped at Sheffield again to get some meat pies. I had an apple pie and Mom, Dad, and Lindsey all tried their first New Zealand meat pies. When we got back, we all showered and changed and then headed back to University of Canterbury to have dinner with a few of my friends. My friend Dingding taught us how to make dumplings and we got to help her finish up cooking some Chinese food and Thomas had made Pavlova for dessert. I was glad to introduce a few of my friends to my family and see them one last time before leaving.
Hammond Adventures 