A very excited Sloth got up at 6:45am, knowing that it had been dumping all night. Looked at the snow report - yep, plenty of fresh, but Mt Hutt "On Hold". Well, that usually means that they're clearing the road and will get it sorted. Not wanting to miss out on a Greybird day, I drove off out there. Well the snow was falling thick and fast only about 20km out of Christchurch. By the time I got to Rakaia Gorge, it was time for chains on. No snowploughs here it seems - around 15cm of neige on the road!
Eventually got to the Mt Hutt access road, still on hold, now until midday. Ok, fair enough I thought, I'll head in to Methven and wait it out. That was quite slow thanks to the cows who were on the move. Almost got a cow's head in the car. No thanks, What do you do in Methven then? Seriously, if I had to do a season in that place I'd go insane. Farming, that's about the size of it. Well I hung around for a couple of hours, ate when I didn't need to, took some photos. Then got the bad news. Closed. Arsebiscuits. Bothered Sloth. At the time I couldn't figure it all out and was hating Mt Hutt for this, but looking back on it there's no way they could've opened with that much neige on the road and zero vis.
Thought about heading over to Porters as that was open, but that would've been a bit of a mission for just a couple of hours riding. Turns out the prime minister was over there as well. Back home for this Sloth then. These days are there to test you.