This was an up-and-down sort of a day, emotionally and terrain-wise both. We were down while going up and down and up, then brightened up while going down.
The route was a transit from the west coast to Central Otago (as the middle of the south island is known), near Queenstown.
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Marian had noted some minor walks to take along the way, but the main thing was to look at scenery which we knew should be splendid. Unfortunately rain started to fall about 3:30am and as we started east, this is what we saw.
The gloom is not exaggerated. The shaft of sunlight gave us momentary hope, but it was a snare and a delusion. We rolled through wet woods.
We could tell that the splendid mountains were there, but we couldn't really see or enjoy them.
We took a short walk through very nice woods
to see a waterfall.
On we went. "Ain't fair," Marian said. "Once in a lifetime trip to New Zealand, it should give us better weather." But New Zealand continued to tease us, as in this poster helpfully placed at a lookout point.
Finally we snaked our way up to the summit of the Crown range, New Zealand's highest paved road at 1,076 meters (3530 feet).
At the summit, the clouds lifted a bit; we could see snowy summits and Queenstown and the beginning of lake Wakatipu in the distance.
We know Queenstown and its lake from a prior trip (here's a picture from 2005). The steep and twisty descent also had several spots we could pull out and admire the views which were excellent.
By the way, the warning sign for that corner recommends 45kph, 27mph. The straight road in the distance, just closer than the water, is the runway of the Queenstown airport.
The weather forecast for tomorrow is improving as are our spirits.
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