Following Sheep

The rain in Arthur’s Pass continued, and we were kinda done with it. What’s the point of being in the mountains if you can’t see any of them? We decided to go to Nelson Lakes National Park. Then, after realizing how far that was going to be, and since we only had a couple days until we needed to get Trevor to the airport, we decided to go to the beach town of Kaikoura instead.
It was an extremely winding road. Sitting in the middle, I felt like I was getting a core workout just trying to stay upright. (I should probs work on that more often.) But the countryside was gorgeous. We had left the national parks and were now in farmland, and most of the mountains had sheep pastures on them. (Shout out to Eileen in #theyamhillcounty!!)
Speaking of sheep….

We rounded a bend, and there were hundreds of sheep on the road ahead of us. The shepherd was behind them, wearing gaiters and short-shorts. I don’t know if that’s normal shepherd garb, but it seemed comfortable. There were dogs trying to keep the sheep in line, but even though their options were basically stay on the road or climb a cliff of either side, the sheep were not having it. We all laughed that this is what Jesus compares us to, but honestly, it’s kinda true: why would we trust this shepherd to lead us somewhere good, when there’s, like, three blades of grass no one’s eaten about 10 feet down a gravel slope?
The shepherd/dog team managed to clear one of the lanes of traffic, so we made it to the other side and saw the gate that some of the sheep were finally getting to. I like to think, two weeks later, that the sheep are all in there by now.