Castle Hill

Castle Hill is about 98 kilometres from Christchurch, off Arthur’s Pass. The drive is scenic, first with the rolling farmland outside Christchurch, and the further away from Christchurch we got the more dramatic the scenery became with mountain peaks in the distance.

What I did not expect from Castle Hill Rocks, was how well it was set up for tourists. It was a weekend day, in the school holidays, and a beautiful day as well, so there were visitors a plenty.

Castle Hill Rocks is managed by the Department of Conservation and it is a precious site to local Maori. Both parties are actively working to restore native plants to the area, such as the Castle Hill buttercup, which has become quite rare.

Even though this site is in the middle of the mountains, it was reportedly once the sea bed over 300 million years ago which, through the shifting of tectonic plates and faultlines, has been thrust skywards. The rocks are towering blocks of limestone in all shapes and sizes, fashioned into these shapes by rain, wind and, long ago, by the sea.

Bruce and I had a wonderful time wandering around these monoliths. I also enjoyed the seeing the number of young people who came here to practice their climbing skills. They lugged their padded falling mats up here with them. We came across a couple of girls who found the climbing a bit tough, so were using their mat as a picnic blanket!

We wandered around for quite some time, and didn’t really notice how high we had come. Our motorhome is down there somewhere.

When it came time to go down, the area we were in only had the narrowest of tracks and it looked a bit precarious. I am fearful of falling and breaking a hip so elected to slide down on my bum. That was a lot of fun – the grass was slippery so I was able to get up a bit of speed. I only hope no-one was watching this crazy 70 year old sliding down the hill on her butt. When I got to my stopping point, near a more substantial track, I looked back to see Bruce still working his way down on all fours, and going backwards, looking a bit like a crab.

You can see the way the land was thrust up at an angle in the photo above.

Once back at the motorhome we headed back on the Arthur’s Pass road, and headed into the alpine Castle Hill Village. This was a well set up little village of mountain style cottages. Presumably people come to stay here for the hiking and skiing. A charming little place.

Our stop for the night was at a Park Over Property at Cass. This was really a collection of a couple of old railway cottages no longer required by the railway. We found that “happy hour” here was compulsory, and it was quite pleasant. It was a surprise to see that a couple who arrived after us where from our NZMCA area, and Coromandel town in particular – we knew each other!.

We had a peaceful night, and an early start the next morning trying to get sunrise photos on the mountains.