We had to be in Pahiatua last Tuesday and in Wanaka first thing on Wednesday.
We’d planned to fly from and to Queenstown but discovered the timing wouldn’t work.
That left us going from and back to Christchurch with a five to six-hour drive to Wanaka through roads prone to ice and snow.
The travel gods were with us, though.
We had a clear run back to Wellington, managed to get an earlier flight than planned, collected the car and were on the road just after 5pm.
We stopped for kebabs at Tinwald and drove on through the rain, watching the temperature dropping from six degrees and wondering what was ahead of us.
The rain stopped at Fairlie but the temperature kept dropping and reached zero just before Tekapo where we encountered sleet.
Thankfully that was localised, the temperature was back up to 2 degrees and the sky cleared a few kilometres on.
Snow was piled at the side of the road through the Lindis but the road itself was clear.
Coming back home yesterday, a sign warned of ice but again the road was fine.
It’s been a bad weekend for crashes but the roads we travelled weren’t busy and were clear and I’m grateful for that.
Homepaddock 
Get your pilots license. Or charter a plane! Rural NZ is not well served by the main airlines.
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Had we got organised earlier we might have been able to fly, it was our fault for not checking schedules in time.
I don’t expect airlines to do uneconomic routes and some Aucklanders could take longer to get to their airport than it takes many people in rural NZ to get to one.
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