Crusing Along Lake Pukaki

After our lunch break at Lake Tekapo, we turned off on the dead-end road leading to Mt. Cook / Aoraki National Park.



It's a great drive & it's so fun to be driving towards the mountains as the get larger and larger in front of you.



We crested another hill and Lake Pukaki peeked over the horizon in a stunning fashion.



It wasn't as blue as Lake Tekapo, but it was much closer to the mountains.



Starting to see snow & those clouds are NOT looking too good ahead!



What's really neat about some of these lakes is that the head of the lake is a flat, wide river- the remnants of a glacier.



It is so awesome driving on a winding road next to a gorgeous lake at the base of some extraordinary mountains.



More road, more snow, more mountains!



Near the "top" of the lake (the north end), the area flattens out and there is a giant river.







These are the sheep to which my husband yelled out "MEOW"
I teased him about it the whole trip.



I was so excited and thrilled to be surrounded by huge mountains, and I thought these very rocky ones with sawtooth peaks were neat.



Some were more covered in greenery & showed great crevasses where the earth had cracked open and all the vegetation had slid down.



WHEE! Mountains at 60 mph!



Getting even closer to the park, we started crossing quite a few flat-bottomed, rocky rivers.



Starting to see snow trails down the mountain.



...and then the rain! It still trips me out seeing this photograph out the "wrong" side of the car.



We were so happy to have finally made it to our first big stop in New Zealand.



My husband wanted to run out in the field....



...I was checking out the impending rain...



....looks like I won't have much chance to do this...



...so yep! I did a handstand in early afternoon drizzle, on a deserted highway in the South Island of New Zealand and it felt amazing!



Mountains, rocks, trees, snow, rain, fog = lots of excitement! We were a bit bummed about the weather, but we didn't let it slow us down a bit. Grabbed our rain gear & headed out on a hike!

GOOD NEWS OF THE DAY: Hubby got his first job with a new client & he's very stoked about it!