Dunedin to Mount Cook

The sun rose bright and clear over Dunedin - read that sentence again.  I said the sun,  yes that big yellow ball had decided to grace us with it's presence and the city is heating up.  By the time we leave it is really warm and I am starting to wish I had worn shorts.

The drive takes us up along the coast which looks great in the sunshine.  The first stop on the way is the Moeraki boulders. These strange round rocks sit on the beach at Moeraki, like giant eggs left behind by some huge dinosaur.  they really are quite a strange thing to find on a beach.

The next stop is Omaru, which is an unusual city for New Zealand.  The city grew rich in the Victorian era due to profits from the refrigerated meat trade and it is full of impressive Victorian stone buildings. It even has a massive opera house - which seems bizarre in what is now a rather small town.

Now we start our drive up into Mckenzie country - named in honour of English actor and star of The Office and Pirates of the Caribean, McKenzie Crook.  It is a land of brown grasses and seas of blue lupins,  with azure blue lakes that seem unreal all of which is towered over by huge mountains.  As we round each corner there are gasps of wow!! and stunning,  There really aren't enough words to do the place justice.

A stop for lunch and we find a nice place that does Maria a stuffed Kumara (sweet potato) ,  which makes a change from the option of cheese & onion sandwiches which are normally available.  Then it is on through more glorious sunbaked country till we approach our destination - Mount Cook.  15km outside Mount Cook the rain starts,  by the time we get to The Hermitage it is coming down in buckets.  This is what we have come to expect.

We check in to our room with "Mount Cook views" though you could have fooled me.  All we can see is mist and rain. Our evening meal is in the restaurant with "Mount Cook Views" (mist), get the lift with "Mount Cook Views" (rain) back to our room with "Mount Cook Views" (fog and heavy rain).

Watching the evenings weather forecast apparently we are to expect snow tomorrow.  Snow!! it's supposed to be sodding summer!