Parting is such sweet sorrow

So the bard said. That is the sad part of travelling. The inevitability of having to say goodbye to dear friends, no matter how much you are enjoying each others company. I guess also that you have to strike that happy balance of leaving at a time when your hosts have a genuine regret to see you go & timing it well in advance of them waving you goodbye with the thoughts, "Thank God they've gone." I think we achieved that happy balance with Michelle & Paul. They are both very busy people & were extremely generous with their time. Thanks Guys, we had a blast. Come up & see us sometime so that we can attempt in some small way to repay your generosity.


So onward & ever Southward we went, through a countryside slowly thawing after what was an incredibly heavy weekend's worth of snow. In fact, we went as far as

we could go, stopping only for the obligatory pictures by what is probably one of the most photographed sign posts in the world. I know that I have photo's of my parents there that were taken in either the late '60s or early '70s when they did their big trip south. They did better than us & actually got to Stewart Island. We had planned to, but, sadly, time & weather conspired against us.

Invercargill didn't impress us very much. It looks old & tired. I guess the half melted snow lingering round wouldn't help, but I still wouldn't care to live there. So it was out across more flat farm land with magnificent views of the Southern Alps looming ever closer & closer. Quite a strange feeling to have seen it all in film & photo & to know that we were actually going to see it all first hand very soon. A very moving moment for us was our first view of Lake Whakatipu, because it coincided with the song Smoke on the Water playing on the radio.
Very moving. The lake itself was absolutely beautiful.

We stayed at Queenstown a night, but were happy to leave. Its very touristy, very commercial, very plastic. We decided to take the alpine road up through Cardona. Not only was it a lot shorter, it was also just absolutely stunning