New Zealand March 17 2013

First sign of real rain. Amazing that we have managed to spend so long in the land of the long white cloud without any rain. And it is not as though we have avoided the notoriously wet areas.

Boarded the coach for the hour and a bit run out to Mt Cook village and the Edmund Hillary
Centre. The town is a small holiday destination with the hotel/restaurant/cafeteria/museum/theatre the most significant structure looking up the valley to Mt Cook itself. Unable to see anything today and too wet to go walking so we spent an hour and a half watching a 3D movie about the Southern Highlands and then an old program about the life of Hillary which I'm sure was on television around the time of his death. Pretty certain Scenic includes this activity so that those who haven't been as lucky as we have with the weather can at least see the mountains and glaciers on film. Everyone was happy to cut short our time there by an hour so we made our way back to Tekapo for a few hours of relaxation/nanny naps/catching up. Trip drawing to a rapid conclusion now with our farewell dinner tonight. We will farewell Sally, our tour leader, Trevor, our South Island coach driver/commentator/comedian and most of our group at the Christchurch airport tomorrow. A couple of the others are having an extra night in Christchurch with us.