Car Wheels On A Gravel Road . . . Lucinda Williams

Cardronna To BannockBurn   138km

I can't believe I forgot about this song as a title for my off road blips.  It was a song that was always played on family car trips.  I have been missing in action for a couple of days as we caught up with people in the real world.
The dinner and night in the Cardrona Hotel was very pleasant.  I sat next to the couple from Australia and she let slip they are both eighty.  I said she is a role model.  I really wanted to know what skin care she used.  
After breakfast John offered to take us up to the snow farm.  A few people had other plans but we had the time and took up the offer.  I have seen Cycling Grannie's snowshoe blips so of course I wanted to go.  It is an area for cross-country skiing, snowshoeing,  in winter, or mountain biking and hiking trails in summer.  It is a much larger area than I imagined.  It is also the Southern Hemisphere Proving Ground for cars/tyres.  At Easter it is the Race To The Sky Hill Climb.  15km, 137 corners, climbing from 1.500ft to 5,000ft.  We puttered up at and down quietly.  At the top we were on top of the Pisa Range and over the back of were we were yesterday afternoon.  John doesn't join up the route because it gives him white knuckles so not for us. 
It was nice to do this and not be on the schedule of doing a longer drive.  We then took the main road over the Crown Range and along the gorge to Cromwell and the supermarket then onto friends in Bannockburn.  In one of those random happenings when we were at the Hotel In Croydon we saw an old forestry connection.  He and his new wife were our neighbours in a forestry village 41 years ago.  We both had daughters in the same year.  Over time we lost touch but he insisted we come and stay.  Amazingly we just picked up the threads again.  I think by breakfast the next morning we were up to date.  He is sill working in forestry in Southland and knew the roads we had been on.