This makes for a good story. 

 

We were travelling to the Christchurch art fair, Janice and myself,  truck full to the roof with paintings, and deciding on an excursion into territory we hadn’t  yet explored we turned off at Kurow setting a course toward the Hakataramea Pass. The road gradually 

deteriorated into bad corrugation but it was too late to turn back. 

 

Women can’t read maps and men don’t listen. If I’d listened we might not have been in this pickle but then I would not have taken those great photos on this side of the pass and I would not have been inspired by the valley’s river, gouged from the terraces, and the 

valley’s wonderful expanse.

 

But when it clagged in over the pass our apprehensions grew. 7 fords later and what seemed like several hours we emerged in 

Mackenzie country - with some relief - and made our way to Christchurch.

 

The very next day in Christchurch we got a flat tyre and had to call the AA as I had mislaid my tyre jack. There is a lesson in this story, I’m just not sure what exactly it is.