The Weather Bomb of 3rd March 2012

New Zealand was hit by a Weather Bomb last night.  Or as I saw on Twitter a WMD (Weather of Mass Destruction).  Luckily Marlborough didn't get the worst of it, seems Taranaki did, but we were not unscathed.   I was totally unaware of it as I'm  totally deaf at night once I take out my cochlear implant, so I didn't hear the high winds. But I did suspect something was up as Cat decided to sit on my chest all night.  Heavily.  If I tried to sleep, she would paw me awake again!!

I was up early to for the drive to Rai Valley for the A & P Show.  Liz Davidson picked me up for our job to judge the photographic competition.  We had a great day, and I took many photos, which I will post up over the next day or two.  

However, on the way, at canvastown we came across this scene....

This is the first thing I saw as we travelled over the Bridge at Canvastown.  A tree had come down.

But!

As the tree crashed down onto the bridge, a big articulated truck was driving past.  It hit the truck.  and the driver swerved....

Lost control and ended up going off the bridge, taking out the railing, and landing down the bank below...

It apparently happened at 4am.  However we stopped at the scene as we were unsure if it had just happened.  Fortunately someone was able to fill us in.

The truck driver walked away from this accident.  I hope he takes out a lotto ticket!

This image allows you to see just how steep that bank was - the truck must have absolutely flown through the air before landing on it's side.  It must have been pretty scary!

The storm was pretty much over by the time we got to the show, and although there was snow on the hills, and the sun didn't really shine, the heavy rain had gone, and we had a great day!