Rakaia River

The sun was shining and the wind was blowing as we headed on our way south via the inland route. We prefer to go this way as its quite scenic, crossing over two major rivers: Waimakariri River and the Rakaia River, passing through small townships and farming areas with the Southern Alps beside us, covered in Spring snow.

In the early days John Bryan transported passengers, stock and freight over the river on a punt. The iron bridge was built in 1883, a wooden bridge erected over the southern channel in 1884 was replaced in 1945 by a concrete structure.

Today the river had quite an atmosphere, people were walking dogs, children building with river stones, there was jet boating and on the other side a wedding party were having their photographs taken, all in the gusty nor west wind.

This is a small part of the Rakaia River with Mount Hutt in the background.
The Rakaia River runs through the
Rakaia Gorge and is one of New Zealand's largest braided rivers.

Daughter E has school holidays for two weeks, hopefully time for a break and catching up with some assignments. Daughter A is into her last term at Uni for this year, she finishes mid October - how this year has flown :)