New Zealand roads

I used to get nervous when we drove in Colorado over mountain passes. Places like Berthoud Pass were a little scary when it was snowing. New Zealand mountain roads are nothing like that.

This weekend we drove to the Snow Farm which is on top of a treeless mountain near Wanaka. The access road, like all mountain roads here, was a narrow, winding, dirt road, with sharp cutbacks, big drops on the sides and no guard rails or even posts to mark the sides.

Can you even see the road in this picture? Going up was crazy with the blowing snow making for almost white-out conditions. Coming back down was much better. They had dumped a bunch of stones on the road (grit for traction), and the sun had come out making visibility better.

See the road? It's that thing that looks like a walking path along the side of the hill.

This is with grit & better visibility. Still, no posts even to mark the edge?

The scenery looked amazing coming off the mountain though. This is overlooking Cardrona Valley. Cardrona ski field is on the far mountain. They closed it for some time over the weekend due to the snowy conditions. Just too snowy to ski.

The mountains here don't have trees on them which is sort of weird. What they have is grass tussocks and small shrubs. At least you don't have to worry about skiing into a tree.