Polar expedition

Bean’s dinner is somewhere in that box, so she was keen to sit next to it while I faffed about getting ready to put everything in the car and head to Queenstown to drop a friend at the airport.

Snow was forecast for the afternoon up in the high country and I decided to take no chances at all. Consequently I took everything Bean and I might need in case we were stuck overnight on the Lindis Pass on the way home.

Sleeping bag, dog coat, dog bed, Mima-picnics, Bean-food, emergency chocolate (for me only), gumboots, cell phone and charger, a reading book, plenty of water, notebook and pen, emergency cake (for me only), hiviz jacket…and quite a few other things that now escape my mind.

This detailed preparation gave me complete peace of mind…and almost inevitably it ensured that we didn’t see a single snowflake fall from the sky, nor on the road all day. The extra shows the remains of the snow on the Lindis from a few days ago. I like the black and whiteness of the landscape.

There were however lashings of rain from ‘our’ side of the Lindis all the way home. It ended up being a horrible final hour and a half of the drive in the pitch black with windscreen wipers going like the clappers. I was very happy indeed to pull into the drive. And even happier to realise that it had been raining like that here since mid-afternoon. Hurray for rain. This is a decent drop and should mean I can do things other than water the flower beds and new native tree plants for a wee while.

I’m pooped this evening. I shan’t be looking at Blips and commenting until tomorrow…