Geraldine

I spent Monday having a relatively relaxing day exploring Geraldine. Geraldine is just a small country town popular with the elderly as a place for retirement with its slower pace of life. The town centres around a small high street with a few shops, which I looked round, with a backdrop of the Southern Alps, the town itself lieing in the Canterbury Plains. Originally I was only planning to spend a couple of nights here before heading out to the Ashburton Lakes for a few days of hiking, arriving at Lake Tekapo the following Monday which I had booked last week due to the high demand for accomodation there. This wasn't to be the case however with some significant snowfall hampering my plans.

Geraldine got away with the brunt of the snowfall and instead just got a lot of rain, accompanied by the odd bit of snow which unfortunately didn't settle. The surrounding areas got a lot though including Lake Tekapo and Mt Hutt (nearby Mt Somers) which were places relatively near Geraldine at slightly higher altitudes, and it looked stunning when watching it on the news. This did mean however that until Thursday I couldn't really go out and do much which meant I had the joys of daytime tv although I have missed watching things like Jeremy Kyle, tipping point, and the chase.

Come Friday the weather had improved and I had to do something other than be in Geraldine so I decided to go down to Timaru for the day, which is a sizable coastal town by New Zealand standards not far from Geraldine. After being dropped off at the information centre I headed to the botanic gardens before following the coast via the port and main high street to the popular beach of Caroline Bay. The town has plenty of Edwardian architecture unlike many other parts of New Zealand with less historical buildings. It was good to get out somewhere for the day.

Saturday was by the far the best days weather forecast for the week and I therefore decided to head out to the Peel Forest to check out some of the waterfalls and attempt the summit of Little Mount Peel. The forest itself was a little remote but luckily some old man in a vintage car picked me up and took me right into the forest to the main car park which saved me walking the sizable distance from the main road, a good hours walk from the car park where I was dropped off. Before attempting the summit I did a walk in the forest taking in some big trees, Acland Falls, and a boardwalk through some swamp land which was a nice walk.

I joined the the path to the summit after the waterfall and the path headed up through the forest before emerging at a frozen lake where I encountered my first significant amount of snow. From here it was snow all the way to the summit, initially through bushes before opening out to scrubland. It was a challenging ascent, especially through the scrubland as the snow had settled over this wooden boardwalk which was the path and I couldn't tell where the path was. Everyone I missed the boardwalk I would sink to my knee as I was effectively stepping on scrub. I eventually reached the summit and from the top the views were stunning, the Canterbury Plains one way, the Southern Alps the other. I couldn't have asked for better weather!

Coming down I was originally planning to take the South Ridge to complete a loop walk, taking me via Rata Falls and Emily Falls en route. Being south facing however there was a lot more snow because of the decreased sun exposure, and a mere 50m or so following the path with the snow above my knees I thought maybe not, so decended the same way I came up. Going down was a lot quicker as I could basically slide down, getting down in little over an hour. When reaching the bottom I unfortunately had to walk from the car park back to the main road at Arundel where I was able to get a ride back to Geraldine. Come evening Geraldine had a small festival thing on which if I had known about would have gone to. There was a fairly big firework display which I watched from the hostel but apparently there was lots going on where it took place. Sunday was my last day in Geraldine and I just had a relaxing one as the weather was a bit overcast.