After two sunny days we won't complain about some rain, but this is not just "some" rain anymore...

People told us, the crazy weather is because of the El Nino effect. Usually the climat should be sunny and warm this time of year. Not so in an El Nino year. The weather pattern of the last few weeks was: sun, rain, snow, gail, hail, thunderstorms, ... We can't remember the order but they said it's always the same.

But because it's raining cats and dogs, we sit in an internet cafe writing articles. Otherwise we would be outside somewhere, collecting memories for the next article. And after all, rain makes even a haircut-stop possible. I went to an instant hairsdresser and had my hair cut. It's rather short now, have to get used to it first...

But back to the lovely, sunny days: It was in Fairlie that Pia found a leaflet of the Edoras Tours. It was decided (for her at least) already then, that we would do such a tour. The weather this day was perfect and with a small gruop of other LotR-fans (all women, I was the only man) we drove into the mountains. Very soon we were happy not having tried this with our car. The road was rather bad...

The Golden Hall of Edoras is certainly not there anymore. Everything had to be removed after filming. But the surrounding mountains and the Mt Sunday itself are breathtaking and clearly recognisable. It was worth a visit!

Yesterday we hiked in bright sunshine Mt Sumers. It's a dormant volcano, people told us, but if you didn't know that, you would never guess it is. Looks like a "normal" mountain...

We didn't start very early in the morning (around 10). Because the time to the peak was estimated around 5h we thought that we might won't make it to the top. Rather soon we found out, that the time given was for really slow hikers, probably people who walk backwards or so... After 3h we reached the top. Unfortunately a whole bunch of schoolkids were there as well. Nothing with peace and quiet on the peak. But the view was great. We could even see Mt Cook and the sea.

Tomorrow we head for the banks peninsula and then we drive back into the mountains (Arthurs pass). Over x-mas we are in Kaikoura where we hope to see whales.