They are having slightly inclement weather here at the moment, its about 15 Degrees Centigrade, and showery. A bit chilly compared to what we have experienced the last few weeks.

Yesterday morning, after a brief conference, we decided on trying to make Queenstown in one go from Christchurch. We headed south on the “1” turned West, headed through Geraldine, and on to Lake Tekapo where we stopped for lunch. The surprise of coming over the top of a hill and seeing the turquoise blue of Lake Pukaki appear in front was quite something. Absolutely fabulous! Unfortunately there was quite a lot of cloud cover, so we still haven’t seen Mt. Cook. It is easy to see why Peter Jackson chose to shoot “Lord of the Rings” here, far more picturesque than Australia.

Anyway, 7 Hours and 485kms later we arrived at the Millennium Hotel Christchurch (nice place) and it was milling rain.

This morning looked more promising so we headed down the town and signed up for a ‘tour’ with Kawarau Jet. Quite a bit different to an evening on ‘An Seabhac mara’, faster, more splashing, dodging all sorts of things like trees, sandbanks, bridges etc. Oh yes and the odd 360 and a scream now and again. Search for Pictures KJET61410393 & KJET61410395 on the Kjet website. We took a gondola up to a point 400m over Queenstown for lunch, very nice.

Unfortunately it rained this afternoon, so we had to console ourselves with (more) retail therapy.

Tomorrow we head for Fjiordland and the Doubtful Sound, looking forward to it (should help restore Dee’s nerves)!