Big snow in Christchurch, spare a thought for Geraldine

Had a rather exciting day as I had to ensure Mum got to Christchurch airport in order to get her connecting flight to London. Today, of all days! Spent most of the day glued to the radio, sussing out the goss on which roads were likely to be blocked as our little Renault is no snowplow. Mum had almost resigned herself to flying out tomorrow when we heard that Christchurch airport had reopened for incoming flights around 3pm. Yay!

Mum's friend Helen had even more trouble making the flight, as she had to make her way from snowed in Geraldine. For most of the day we were worried that Rusty and Helen had no show of making it to Christchurch. But as the southern snow subsided around noon, they decided to give it a go. Even with a 4 wheel drive and a set of chains, they still got stuck twice coming down the hill from Geraldine, and had to be pulled out by tractor type things (city kid language ok!), with the snow reaching the 'belly' of the car. Once they got onto the main road they had no major problems, but by then the day had already seemed too much of an adventure. Suffice to say we were very happy to see Rusty and Helen at the airport.

And spare a thought for the South Canterbury folks tonight - today Geraldine had no power, no water and over 2 feet of snow. Apparently there are four large 4WD's stuck in the snow on the main street, so it appears even SUVs can't get very far.