Fox Glacier to Wanaka

Sunsets are always romanticized, but I personally have always been a lover of sunrises. However, I realized why people like sunsets - you're already awake, and often in a place where the sunset is accessible. For sunrises, you have to wake up when its still dark and chilly outside, bundle up and wait amid the mosquitoes for the sun to peek over the horizon.

Franz Josef Glacier

We started the morning off with a jaunt around Okarito Trig Walk.

Through Arthur's Pass into Hokitika

A gloomy sky greeted us in Christchurch; we cooked our breakfast on the barbecue-meet-stove outdoors, and then packed our bags. Our hostess had suggested we visit the top of the hill for a view of the city, and we stopped by for a quick, rainy visit before hitting the road again.

Skywards

I've been looking up at the sky a lot lately. I realized that I rarely do that now, but I remember often coming home in the evening as a child, and stopping to stare at the stars. I remember sitting in the park and watching the clouds roll by, watching the trees shaking their branches to the wind, of birds chirping and flying about, of squirrels chasing each other along the boughs.

Blossoms in the park

By a single thread

My little croton is holding on. It used to be a big, beautiful thing with four strong stems, and then it suddenly dropped, and three of them withered away. One held on, and remains green with new leaves pushing through every week.

Thornton Bales

Wandering around downtown

The original plan was to head to High Park for cherry blossom viewing, an activity I haven't partaken in for the last several years. The night before, there was news that peak bloom would be about 4 days later, but we decided to chance it anyways.

Along the peninsula to Christchurch

Another morning, another early drive. We made a stop at Kaikoura Peninsula, and begin hiking up the area.

Picton & Blenheim

As per the norm in most of my trips, an early morning to catch the ferry to the South Island. What was perhaps slightly, but sadly not entirely out of the norm, was the change of mood.