Cumulus clouds everywhere

Ok, maybe not right here, close to Mt Cook

But pretty much everywhere else, that’s Lake Tekapo in the distance

What a spectacular scenery!

There’s just enough room between the clouds to fly through

Crossing Lake Tekapo to the east, Lake Pukaki in the distance

Easterly creeping in

Two Thumb Range

Cloudy Peak Range

And then I noticed this beauty!

To me it looks like a sad (tired?) looking puma

To make today’s flight a little longer I ended with another quick out and return to Lake Sumner under this street of clouds

And there are a lot of sheep on the Te Akatarawa Road from Fishermans Bend to the Benmore Dam

The Clay Cliffs, I’ve been here many times before

but it’s always worthy of a visit

But hey! What is that!? Beautiful scenery destroyed by an absolute eyesore!

They ruined it all by putting a dumb stupid unnecessary sign smack in the mibble here. Only OSH could approve of something insane like this

Luckily the view towards Omarama and Mt Horribler is still as good as ever

But why did we have such an early start? Because Rachel is going gliding today with no less than Justin Wills!

It’s a late birthday gift for Rachel, flying with the legend

Rachel took these photos whilst flying in RW, this is above the Lindis Pass coming from the Dunstan Range

The Lindis Pass looking west, unfortunately not long after Rachel started feeling unwell, something that often happens to people not used to flying gliders, especially as a passenger

So the flight is cut short and Rachel and Justin head back towards Omarama, here are the Clay Cliffs again that we visited a few hours before

RW on finals for runway 27. Despite having to cut the flight short Rachel had a great time, many thanks to Justin Wills!

And that was our holiday. On the way back to Christchurch a last photo of Mt Cook, we look forward to our next visit to this wonderful part of the country!

Mt Cook looking great today

The Pukaki High Dam

Where water flows out of the lake

and a little further downstream into the Pukaki River which in turn flows into Lake Benmore

And this is Lake Benmore and it’s hot and we’d like to cool off

And so we do, what a lovely refreshing swim that was

This is at the Falstone Campground

We continue our track further south, down Falstone Road, just to see what’s there

And it’s beautiful!

Lovely little beaches

Lots of ducks

These funny looking things

Time for a nap in the shade, the great thing about this car is that is has so much space, this is the first time we were able to fit those chairs in the car and they are soooo relaxing

The road ended at some farm and so we had to turn back, this is one of the little bays at Lake Benmore on the drive out again

The Ohau B Power Station