1:00 pm. It's time for me to leave Christchurch, I reckon, and head-out west again towards the Southern Alps - and the Mount Cook area in particular. At 3,496m or 11,470 ft, Mt Cook is New Zealand's tallest mountain; and is also known as Aoraki 'The Cloud Piercer'.
Around halfway through the ride, looking back over my left shoulder towards the southeast, I run along the bridge that crosses the Rakaia Bridge near the ski resort of Mount Hutt and notice some locals [probably] are enjoying the mid-afternoon late summer sunshine.
Progressing still further along the 230 km (143 mile) westward trip to my next intended stopover destination of Lake Tekapo, I observe the cloud cover thickening as it attempts to climb over the Alps from the West Coast, and the Tasman Sea beyond. It does look as though the forecasters might have correctly predicted a change in the weather to more unsettled conditions arriving from the west.
I arrive at Tekapo by around 5:00pm. Later during the evening, towards dusk, I go (unusually for me :o) for a walk and take-in the stillness and tranquillity of the Lake's surroundings.
But turning around and strolling back to my digs, the cloud cover still looks threatening. There's buggerall, however, that I can do about it; I shall just have to take whatever comes my way, after what has been a wonderfully settled spell of weather for around the last month or so.
