Twizel

The problems with my laptop took a turn for the worse. This morning I discovered my C++ compiler which I use to solve my Project Euler problems no longer worked. After all the attempts to get Movie Maker going yesterday I did not have a restore point far enough back to use. As we still had open internet I removed the application and tried to install it again. The install failed. Now I can’t do my Euler Problems when I want to. I can read but it’s one passtime that’s stymied. Looks like I’ll have to go back to square one and reinstall the Operating System. I won’t do that until we’re back on the boat. Everything else works ok so it’s not all bad.

So – after all that misery this morning we had a late start. Our aim was to get to Twizel and find somewhere cheap to stay. A strong north westerly was blowing and I mean strong. When we passed by the same dams we saw on the way to Oamaru we saw water being blown over the tops. Quite spectacular. Doubly so as we had bright blue skies.

We stopped at a fossil/geological exhibition which was quite interesting. This led us to head back a bit and see some interesting local rock formations called the Elephant Rocks as some looked a bit like, you guessed it, elephants. We ate our lunch here. Nearby was another side trip where we saw the partial fossil remains of a whale a few 10s of millions of years old.

Back on the road, after passing Omarama we detoured off the road, onto a very rough road, to see the Clay Cliffs which we’d photographed from afar on the way to Oamaru a few days ago. Up close they were like huge stalagmite formations out in the open. Up very close they were soft and crumbly. We imagined they would look quite different even after a decade or two.

We have found a cheap room in the Parklands Alpine Tourist Park. We’ve unloaded and will stay here a couple of nights. Today, we could see torrents of rain over the mountains to our west. The forecast for tomorrow is pretty good. It is our intention to drive to the Mount Cook area and hike up to Mueller Hut. This was a hike recommended to us by Tracey and Lew who we met on the bike trail. It should be good.