white cloud curving back

white cloud curving back

with the wind over the hills

rimming the blue lake

We camp in the wilderness at beautiful Lake Pukaki, surrounded by dark hills and the snow-covered Southern Alps in the distance. Many strangely shaped clouds paint frescoes on the blue dome of the sky, mirrored in the turquoise water.

Pokhara hailstorm

Pokhara hailstorm –

people seek shelter, poor cow

jumps this way and that

Pam and I get caught in a hailstorm in Pokhara. All traffic stops. Trucks, taxis, jeepnies and bikes pull up under the branches of huge trees that line the road. We take shelter in a cafe, order chai and watch a group of people, including one woman with a baby, stand against a red, green and white striped tree trunk, children crouching under a cement ping pong table on the sidewalk. One confused cow, pelted by hail and accustomed to being herded by rocks thrown at her rump, jumps this way and that. The hail cuts leaves and flowers from trees and the streets fill waist deep with freezing, swirling brown water. When the hail stops after half an hour, the ground is white. Women scoop the ice into buckets while young men fling hail at each other.

Avebury Circle

Avebury Circle –

one white sheep sleeps with her back

against the warm stone

Avebury henge is magical in many ways. The massive stone circles are oriented to the rising moon. The monoliths alternate between tall thin stones and short squat ones. Sheep grazing on the downs seem drawn to the stones, perhaps just for the shelter they afford or perhaps for the powerful energy they radiate.

moon over turquoise

moon over turquoise

Lake Pukaki – pink clouds

above Aoraki

From our tents on the shore of Lake Pukaki, we have a beautiful view of Aoraki and his two brother mountains through a gap in the hills. After sunset the clouds put on a moonlight sonata full of fans, curlicues and saucers. Lake Pukaki is the largest of three alpine lakes formed when receding glaciers blocked the valleys with terminal moraines. The lake is fed by the Tasman River, which has its source in the Tasman Glacier. Finely ground rock particles brought down by melt water from the glacier gives the lake its turquoise color

pitted snow, crackled

pitted snow, crackled 

ice and clear running water

transform Pilgrim Creek

A few of the many faces of water, liquid, snow and ice. Thawing in the day's warmth, the snow on the banks has lost its crystalline structure, collapsing into a pitted, porous amalgam. The ice at the edge of the water looks like crackle glaze or shards of glass. The liquid water, flowing swift and clear, undermines the ice, leaving it suspended like a fractured glass shelf projecting from the bank or perched like a shattered shield on a log poking up from the creek. The sun shining on these three faces of water gives them an extra sheen.

trail to Aoraki

trail to Aoraki –

umbrella cloud shades the snow

covered mountain peak

Walking through meadows full of large mountain buttercups, mountain daisies, gentians and edelweiss, we have a magnificent view of snow-covered Aoraki, with an umbrella cloud shading the summit. Aoraki, the tallest peak in Australasia, was named by the Māori of the Ngai Tahu iwi (tribe). According to legend, Aoraki and his three brothers were the sons of Rakinui, the Sky Father. While on a sea voyage, their canoe overturned on a reef. When the brothers climbed on top of their canoe, the freezing south wind turned them to stone. The canoe became the South Island (Te Waka o Aoraki), and Aoraki and his brothers became the peaks of the Southern Alps.

paw prints in the snow

paw prints in the snow

on Blue Stone Bridge repeating

puzzling sets of three

These tracks are a bit of a mystery. They were probably made by a raccoon because they show the characteristic long fingers, all pointing forward, unlike the opossum, which would clearly show the opposable thumb sticking out to the side. Both animals overlap front prints with hind prints, but here there are sets of three tracks, not two or four.