On the road again in wet Wanaka

Actually, looking out of the window it appears to have stopped raining again. Hurrah.

I'm away for a few days with my friend Torunn. We're driving southwards, ending up in Queenstown on Monday afternoon. The trip is going okay so far. Our flight out of Wellington was delayed yesterday but we got out eventually. Poor Torunn found the bumpy ride a bit much and wasn't too well; she recovered in the car though. Lucky there were two of is so I could drive!

We made it to Kaikoura in time to go and have lunch and see seals before going on our whale watch tour, which wasn't cancelled despite dour predictions from the guy who drove us from Picton airport to pick up our rental car. It was, however, somewhat swelly. The whale watching in Kaikoura is owned and operated by the local Maori iwi (tribe) and is terribly professional and modern. Nice comfy catamarans and flashy animated video to watch while the crew hunt for whales. Normally they expect to see one or two a trip. We were incredibly lucky and saw four. All sperm whales, the most commonly sighted whale off Kaikoura - attracted by the deep trench just off the coast and plentiful food.



Unfortunately Torunn's tummy was still a bit wobbly ...

After the whale watch we had a drive to get to Methven, beyond Christchurch, where we were staying. The clouds rolled in for most of the "scenic drive" annoyingly, but our hostel was nice and so was the pub we had dinner in.

This morning it was utterly glorious first thing and we could see the mountains behind the village. So we set off; first stop a forest to see NZ's biggest tree, a totara - 1000 years old and very big.

After that we pretty much kept driving. A couple of lookout stops once we were nearing Mount Cook - one at the incredibly blue and incredibly windy Lake Tekapo, and then shortly afterwards at the even bluer Lake Pukaki:



Bluer than it looks in that, actually; I need to adjust the colour a bit. We had planned to drive up to Mount Cook village but the clouds had rolled in over the mountains so there wasn't much point. Instead we stopped in Twizel, which is a bit of a dead end, and had lunch, and kept on towards Wanaka through a terrific rainstorm. We missed more views thanks to the rain, but by the time we'd got here and sorted ourselves out it had stopped so we went for a walk.

Tomorrow, Te Anau. Whether we make it to the Milford Sound or not is doubtful, they've been having snow that way.