Wintry New Zealand weather issues .... :)

Rain, rain, rain and yet more rain ........ and then it snowed!! Left Dunedin, despite loving the charming little university town/city of Scottish origin (a full 25% of the population are students, making for a high energy dynamic intermingled ......) ..... managed a little city tour in the rain where I was the only passenger on a regular city coach bus!! Life is what happens when we are making other plans.....I had one planned to Larnach Castle, where I was to stay a night, bicycle to the tip of the peninsula and play with penguins....ha! Sorry Sarah & Rob, but could not trace your steps....the road was clouded and flooded and hence, closed.....after waiting out two days, decided to board a "track and trail" tour to Queenstown where apparently it was not raining....which was about the only place in NZ where it was not (the papers mention this is a "once in a hundred year kind of rain"....I believe them!!)......the train took me and a handful of Korean university students, (again, we had a train mostly to ourselves...tourist season is long gone) into the most remote and mystically haunting scenery I have been in, perhaps ever.....the train came, literally to the end of the track, we hopped off to wait for a small van that would pick up our luggage and take us to Queenstown.....the two young students were to be met by a friend at this spot, in the middle of seemingly, nowhere, with temps rapidly droppping and registered about zero at that point....the driver said to come along with us (I was to be the only one going forward at this point) as it was going to be dark soon and no place to even take cover, for at least twenty km....the girls quickly hopped on and we kept a look out for their friends (we would not miss another vehicle on this singular road and we never did see another vehicle the whole time!!).. ....we dropped them off at the next town where a lady would take them in, while they frantically tried to get a hold of their friends on a cell phone that refused service! Hope they tied up somewhere....I, and my cheerful driver, in the meantime, continued along on this most amazing of roads......my jaw this morning is rather sore, clicking along in amazement as it did for hours yesterday. The only signs of civilization were tiny hamlets, really of sheep farmers miles and miles apart from each other...rather a lonely existence and my driver said it was hard for the young men who inherited these farms to find wives willing to live in such remoteness, hence many forty year old bachelors running the show themselves these days, but the scenery was just astounding....I loved every moment of the journey.......well, maybe not all if it, particularly when we had to carefully drive through several river crossings that were flooded (I held my breath and trusted the driver was competent...he was :) .... well no sooner had we passed these concerns, when the snow started in earnest.....when the lights of Queenstown twinkled in the distance (it was most certainly late evening by this time) I think both the driver and I released a breath of absolute relief.....I checked into a toasty hotel room, ordered room service and was fast asleep by 8:00 pm!!! Hence, it is still dark out this morning as I type....I slept a full nine hours, only to wake long before any kind of breakfast was available....thank God for business centers!! More later after I start on my explorations of Queenstown, which by the way, registers a cool minus two this morning.....I have with me, one sweater for warmth....all the rest are warm weather clothes! Milford Sound journey will be on my schedule next, weather permitting, as the young lady at the coincierge advised me.....love to all, Seija