Good Timings and Bad Timings

Sunday 23 March

The rain and cloud set in overnight in Queenstown - and we’d had two days at a rather expensive but very lovely campsite so it was time to move on.

I finally got to meet Campsite Cat for a few minutes on an early morning loo run - very cute and rather aloof kitty who clearly ran the whole campsite!

The road alongside Lake Wakatipu heading south is probably pretty spectacular - but our views were shrouded in low cloud and mist so we’ll just have to return on a clear day.

We pulled into Kingston Freedom Camp but it was fairly full and only bumpy, slopey sites under the trees were available so we pressed on into Kingston itself in search of morning tea - which we found at The Flyer cafe at the heritage steam train station. It was a little bit random - we ordered a cheesy bacon scone which apparently came with strawberry jam, then the "barista" lad apologised profusely for the blobby coffee art on Louis' latte - we agreed it was modern art so didn't have to look like anything in particular! Little did we know that 2 hours later our elusive friend Ruth Bunney would be stopping there for lunch - so near and yet so far!

Lumsden was our next overnight option - but on our way there we spotted a hubbub at Fairlight so pulled over to investigate. It turned out to be a fully functional steam engine just coking up the boiler and getting ready to chug off to Kingston at the other end of its heritage line! Such good timing for us as we watched it disappear into a huge cloud of dirty hissy smoke & steam, blow the whistle then pull gracefully but loudly out of the station.

Again - if only we had realised - we missed Ruth not be minutes or hours, but by mere metres as she and her cycling friends had stopped to watch the train too - just from the other side of the tracks!

As we trekked southwards the clouds and rain began to clear and we finally spotted blue skies - not only that, but the lowest rainbow I have ever seen, glowing gently across the clouds and the hill in the first picture below.

Trains, it seems, are a bit of a feature out this way - we arrived in Lumsden half an hour later and found that the old station there was part heritage area and part freedom camp - which was kinda funky! We parked up across 3 spaces (there were no long caravan spaces marked) right next to an old engine and grabbed a quick lunch in Banjo.

We’d spotted a cycle trail on our drive in so we hopped on our e-bikes and cycled about 18km back in the direction we had just come from, to Five Rivers which sounded lovely but turned out to be a derelict cafe which was up for sale - doh!

The Around the Mountains cycle trail was a nice wide open track, well graded with only the occasional mucky cow crossing, on the 10km section we rode. The whole route is 186km, starting at the Walter Peak Station on Lake Wakatipu, passing through Lord of the Rings country at Mavora Lakes, down to Mossburn, across to Lumsden and back up the road we had recently travelled down, to Kingston.

At Five Rivers we turned back and seeing dark clouds and rainstorms rolling in from the South, we raced the rain back to Lumsden and only just got the bikes packed onto their rack and covered when the downpour blew in.

Chilled evening and I took a Fitbit wander round Lumsden in the light drizzle - dear reader, this did not take long! The coolest thing was seeing various travellers parked up and using the station as a dining room & kitchen for the evening! Only in New Zealand!