As Good As It Gets

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Along with our cheese toasties for dinner last night, we thought we'd add a touch of sophistication by cracking open a bottle of white wine. New Zealand produces some fabulous wines but unfortunately most of them are well out of our price range so the cheap Black Label wine we picked up at the supermarket before leaving Christchurch was far from the best. Flavour-wise it was quite nice actually but the way my head felt this morning made me vow never to touch a drop again as long as I live!

Luckily we weren't going far today. Well, in fact we weren't going anywhere at all! We had enjoyed our time by Lake Pukaki so much yesterday that we agreed to stay on another night if the weather was nice again and it most certainly was. We had a lovely relaxing day sitting back in our fold-out chairs and slowly baking in the sun. Every now and again we braved the freezing waters of the glacier lake to cool off a bit and the most strenous activity we did all day was a bit of laundry. I spent a few hours deep in concentration trying to get to grips with the rather complicated tri-alphametic puzzles that Glynn had bought for me in Geraldine when we went to see the World's Largest Jersey. The view of Mount Cook across the lake was as clear as it had been yesterday and every so often I found myself marvelling at how anyone could pass up an experience like this.

We took another dip in the lake in the early evening and were joined by an older Kiwi couple from a neighbouring campervan. Then a couple of Kiwi ladies, a mum and her daughter, came over to the water and were persuaded to join the party and everyone was getting on famously until an English woman of about 60 gatecrashed the party. She was an utter toff of the worst kind and soon got on everyone's nerves by talking about money, jobs and experiences in a way that belittled those of us who have had to work hard to get where we are. We were all glad when she left, especially a young German family who had also come down to the water to cool off. We were half-expecting the toff to say something insensitive about the Germans and yet still couldn't believe our ears when we overheard her saying to the Germans 'don't mention the war'. Honestly.

We finished the day with another nice sunset although it was too cloudy to be as dramatic as last night. With the temperature falling sharply, we decided we will probably move on tomorrow although if the weather stays nice we just might not be able to prise ourselves away....

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Photos

Cooking at Mount Cook
Do not be fooled by Mount Cook's cool expression - it was a hot and heavenly day :-)

My Beautiful Launderette
The ultimate new age husband!

All Hail Mount Cook
What you don;t know is that the water was so cold, Glynn was frozen in this position for a couple of hours!

The Pines
Where'd everybody go?