Silver Dream Machine

Saturday, December 11, 2004
Glenorchy, South Island, New Zealand
 Here on the shores of Lake Wakatipu ('hollow of the sleeping giant') we are surrounded by snowcapped mountains and the lake splashes gently in the background. It has been a bright sunny day and we have a log fire, a comfy sofa, a big stack of videos, games etc and a warm room. What else could we need?

Our talent for turning the weather to custard (as they say here) has not failed us recently, as the NZ summer has struggled a bit to get started. One newspaper photo showed the lowlying snow around Lake Tekapo (which we saw) captioned 'dreaming of a white Christmas' - this was not the idea! We had one day in Methven totally rained out, although this did give me the opportunity to watch 'Gone with the Wind' from 'Miz Scarlett' to 'tomorrow is another day' - not that I'm getting idle of course. Rest assured we have done lots of walking, helped by the incredibly long daylight hours; it may be cool but it is light until 9:30pm. The reverse of the odd warm February in the UK when it gets dark at 4pm.

We are now the proud possessors of Bluesmobile II, a 1984 Mazda 626 with luxuries such as a working fan and heater, five gears and two door mirrors. It is an aged metallic silver (not the same all over!) so Andy wanted to refer to it as the Silver Machine, after his favourite Hawkwind song. However I kept thinking of the David Essex classic of the title (as may you now, evil grin) so this hasn't worked out too well. It seems to behave more or less although doubtless we'll need to sellotape a few bits back on; there's already some no 8 wire (That famous Kiwi fix) securing the rear bumper.

We've been walking in the Rakaia gorge and also admiring the stupendous scenery of Mount Cook. Andy went up to about 1700m and was taught an unorthodox technique to descend a steep snowy slope, toboganning on his waterproof trousers! (pity there's no photos). We both did the 10k return walk to the Hooker Glacer terminal lake, complete with icebergs, the huge Mount Cook lily and Aoraki herself looming in the background, with the occasional spectacular avalanche to be heard and seen, happily very high up.

En route to Kinloch we stopped to gawp at the bungy jumpers (no thanks) and to admire the thousands of lupins currently in flower everywhere. NZ is looking even better second time around.

Things seem quiet as yet as we believe the main Kiwi holiday season hasn't started, so we do get peaceful hostels and very friendly welcomes. Christmas isn't far off - it's pretty strange watching the adverts here, all 'buy your barbie kit for Christmas' so doubtless it will be mayhem soon, or as much as it gets in this laid back part of the world.

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