It's raining again today, so no golf for Andy. We've decided to have a quiet reading day instead! After all, we usually have at least one day per holiday doing so...admittedly usually by a pool with a cold beer! There's allegedly a big storm sweeping through tonight - rumours of 160km/hr gusts of wind and 300mm rainfall in 24 hours. We'll see!

We travelled today up through Queenstown, past the Remarkables mountain range (yes, they were!) and up over Crown Pass where this photo was taken from, across the Pisa Range through Cardrona, an old gold mining village. We also stopped for allegedly the best pies in NZ in Arrowtown. It's a pretty little quaint mining town, shades of the Anerican mid West, but don't bother diverting too far for the pies! The icecream was much better...!

There really aren't enough superlatives in the English language to do this magnificent place justice. Yes, I know it's on everyone's bucket list, and it was heaving with tourists, but it's just stupendous! Again, I don't think my photo or any one photo can prove that, but even in the pouring rain (sorry - make that torrential!) it was dramatically stunning. Actually, I think it was even better in the rain - so many waterfalls cascading down the steep cliffs into ...

Attempted a walk round part of this lake - only part as its about 80km long, the largest body of water in the South IsIand. Visited a bird sanctuary on the way, saw four kakas and three takahe, both rare types of indigenous bird. And both quite weird! Windy day...those of you who know me well will appreciate how unpleased that made me...so we turned round and had a beer on the terrace instead!

Arrived in drizzle after rain and wind intermittently on our 400km journey here. This is another truly beautiful place - a huge lake surrounded by mountains, some of which still have snow on their peaks. Greeted by a full double rainbow...this is my clearest photo of it!