Today we drove from Christchurch, through the mountains that form the spine to the South Island to the West Coast. We went through Arthur's Pass, one of the world's most spectacular drives. While the pass is sometimes closed in the wintertime, we had a wonderful, sunny day. In New Zealand, snow cover is very much a function of altitude (a weather forecast in the South Island might say "snow today, down to 1500 meters").
Along the way, we stopped at the town of Arthur's Pass, where there is a tourist office with a number of
kea birds in the parking lot. Keas are unusual alpine parrots (unusual since most parrots are rain-forest based, not alpine) which, unfortunately, love to eat the rubber seals off of cars. Lots of signs saying "Don't feed the keas" so naturally they are all getting fed. We attracted a few when cleaning out the car, and I think we saw one of them throughout the rest of the day. Lunch was at a bar called the "Wobbly Kea", so I naturally had to buy a shirt.
We did a short hike (estimated at 20-30 minutes, or about an hour between the toddler pace and Ilona trying out her camera) and otherwise enjoyed the drive tremendously.
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