Yesterday we saw the Southern Alps on a grey, overcast day from a lookout to the south east of Christchurch.

Today, we are crossing them on the TranzAlpine train en route to the West Coast in general and the town of Greymouth in particular on what is, for the moment, a much nicer day.

We are crossing the agricultural Canterbury Plains to the west of Christchurch. To say that this is beautiful country would be an understatement, and since the TranzAlpine has an open air viewing carriage I was able to shoot it unimpeded by glass. I was spoilt for choice when it came to the representative photo, but I ended up choosing this one because of the number of representative components; the big sky across what (for now at least) is wide, flat land, the snow capped mountains, the lush, green farmland surrounded by trees, and the fences and buildings of a farming communities, including the old style telegraph pole.

(If you're familiar with the computer game series "Farm Manager", this is very much like the bucolic idyll that features on the launch screen. Of course rural life is rarely as carefree as its depictions can suggest.)

We are approaching the town of Springfield (population 318 as of 2018) which is considered to mark the western edge of the Canterbury Plains, about 65km (40 miles) west of Christchurch. We had been running roughly north west alongside NZ State Highway 73 for a while now, but this seems to be taken from just beyond the point where we swing more northerly and the road swings more westerly. I'd be looking roughly west here. If these mountains have names, I can't be absolutely certain what they are.

After a brief stop at Springfield we'll continue more north than west through the towns of Craigieburn, Cass (population: 1) and then hang a left to track the Waimakariri River westward until we reach Arthur's Pass, then it's through a tunnel down the other side of the Southern Alps, out to the West Coast region, then up to Greymouth for an all too brief stop, and back again. That story will be told in one of my New Zealand galleries... if I ever find the time to finish it.