* * Day 13 addendum, Queenstown

Hmmm. Our plans have had to change.

Resting from our amazingly wet backcountry experience in our hotel room in Queenstown, Whitney turned on the television to find that there has been extensive flooding all across the western side of the South Island. Our plan from here was to travel up the West Coast, but there is a bridge that has been washed away half-way up the coast and all traffic has been re-routed. The long range of the Southern Alps parallels the West Coast and there is only one highway on that side of the island. So effectively this means we can’t go there at all. We began to think about other options.

In the midst of our contemplation, we walked into downtown Queenstown to look for dinner. Oh, it was raining again. Most restaurants were overflowing, in spite of the awful weather. We tried a Mexican restaurant, but they couldn’t seat us. We went to a Mexican take-out and ate inside, but Whitney didn’t like it. We cheered her up only by taking her to Starbucks.

My hiking boots were wet, so I wore my crock shoes. I slipped and fell on the stairs leading down from the restaurant, wrenching my back. What an irony that I have been walking over rain-slickened trails for three days and hurt myself on a flight of stairs back in town!

The plan now is to head back up the east side, visiting again with our new best friends, the Fishers, who we met in Ashburton but we will now see in their second home on the east side of Mt. Cook, New Zealand’s highest peak. The adventure continues.