The rain settled in Queenstown during the afternoon on New Year’s Eve and we quickly altered our plans to head downtown for a series of outdoor concerts and fireworks to spend an evening of apps, Indian food, and wine at the house with Gretchen, Brad, Steve, Ali, and some family friends of theirs from the UK. But as the rain lightened around 10pm Gretchen, Brad, and the two of us quickly changed our minds and decided to ring in the New Year in downtown Queenstown under a small display of fireworks. We arrived in town an hour later only to feel the rain start to pour down again. Luckily we found a semi-broken umbrella in a trash can and walked to the nearest pub that wasn’t charging a hefty cover fee. We never actually heard anyone start the countdown but when the fireworks started we knew it had struck midnight and we scurried outside to celebrate with the rest of New Zealand.
On New Year’s Day, we said goodbye to Gretchen and Brad until we see them back in Jackson. It’s been so much fun sharing and laughing about our first experiences and adventures in New Zealand and we will surely miss their company. We pulled out of the car park at the same time. They headed to Dunedin and up the east coast to Christchurch to fly home in a little over a week. We drove north towards Mt. Cook to spend a day under the shadow of the tallest mountain in all of Australasia. The forecast warned us that it would be “Fine during the day with rain developing in the evening.” We have learned to pretty much ignore the weather forecast down here, plan for rain, be glad if it is fine (what they refer to as sunny, partly cloudy, warm-ish), and assume if it is fine that it will probably rain sooner than later. It is still technically spring here and very much like home in that sense.
We arrived in Mt. Cook Village to beautiful views of a cloud covered Mt. Sefton and the Footstool Glacier and the sunlit peaks of Mt. Cook, which towers over the valley at 12,313 feet. The Hooker Valley sits at 2,400 feet making the climb to the top of the snow and glacier covered Mount Cook look like quite a feat. The mountain has actually already claimed three lives just this spring. The wind was already starting to howl through the campsite and we decided to set up our tent in a somewhat protected grove of tall pine trees. We made several attempts to heat up our Indian leftovers as the wind kept blowing the flame out, even after we built a barricade with water bottles, bags, and our own bodies. After a luke warm meal, we contemplated escaping the cold wind and retreating to the tent to play cards. But the skies were still very light and realizing we were just 1k from a café, we hopped in the car and drove down the road to the Old Mountaineer’s Café to enjoy two pints that came with complimentary warmth and stunning views of Mt. Cook. 
Our night back in the tent was a bit more interesting. We fell asleep after a mean game of gin rummy and at about 1am awoke to our tent collapsing in on us as stronger and stronger gusts blazed through the camp. The tent would spring back to its normal shape and then collapse in on us again with the next gust. Like the fear of bears sometimes overwhelms us in the Tetons, we were suddenly overwhelmed with visions of our tent ripping and of pine boughs breaking off and crushing our tent . . . like I said we found a protected site under the only tall trees in camp . . . good one. Our car was only about 100 meters from our tent so as I stayed put to keep the tent weighted down, BJ made three trips to the car with all of our stuff. We waited until there was a lull in the wind and very quickly disassembled the tent and scurried to the car under, of course, crystal clear skies . . . the most stars I have seen in days. Other than waking up a few times to the car rocking in the wind, we enjoyed a very nice slumber in the back of the car. The morning brought rain and after coffee and a huge bowl of oatmeal, we told Mt. Cook we would see it soon, and started to drive back to Queenstown. Although a quick trip to the mountain, less than 24 hours, we do hope to return and do a bit of tramping with our parents this summer.
On the drive home we were nicely surprised with blue skies and took a quick detour to a mini Bryce-like formation in the side of a hill called the Clay Cliffs. The rain caught up with us again and we continued down the road with plans to enjoy a great rainy day activity . . . wine tasting. There are two wine regions just outside of Queenstown, Gibbston Valley and Cromwell , and both are well known for their pinot noir varieties. We sampled a few in the Gibbston Valley at Peregrine Winery as well as at Gibbston Valley Winery, which also had a cheesery . . . yum. We of course planned our dinner of homemade pasta and salad to go specifically with a bottle of Peregrine Chardonnay and Gibbston Valley aged goat cheese.
