If Plan 'A' Doesn't Work...

...the alphabet has 25 more letters. And we have all the time in the world.

The day started out a lot better than the last few; Lowburn looked very peaceful with no wind, no fog and thankfully no rain!

I finished getting the inside ship-shape while David was doing his outside chores, preparing to hitch up before we pulled out, heading for the West Coast. The sun came out...

... so while David was busy, I wandered down to the end of the reserve beside the boat ramp to take some shots of the reflections in Lake Dunstan. 

We call this the 'The Island', although it's not an island at all, it's just a bubble of land at the end of a finger that forms a sheltered harbour.

Snow on the Carrick Range behind Bannockburn, the Nevis Road heads through there somewhere. 

We said good-bye to Robyn & Ross, they'd pulled in behind us last night. We met them at the Autumn Festival rally where they were parked not too far from us with their lovely family of pets. Look how low that snow is on the Pisa Range behind, no wonder we had a couple of cold nights!

We pulled out and headed to the dump station back in Cromwell to empty; following our motto of 'dump, pump and fill' whenever we have the chance. You never know when plans are going to change. And then we headed back past Lowburn, stopping one more time to fill up with sweet spring water from our 'secret' spring nearby. And then it was finally off down the road towards Wanaka past dozens of vineyards with rows and rows of bare vines. Last time we came past here the vines were all in their autumn colours. 

About half way along the lake, we suddenly decided to change our plans. Tomorrow's forecast was for fine weather but then it was rain for the next 2-3 days, and we just couldn't face another couple of days of rain with no internet and nothing much to do at a isolated DOC camp at the head of Lake Hawea (our intended first stop on the way through Haast Pass). We also heard a big fish calling 'Daaa...vid, Daaa...vid'.

So we hung a right at Luggate and crossed over the Clutha River, one bridge sooner than expected...

...and pulled into a gravel pit on the otherside to have some lunch, we had a longer than expected drive ahead of us now. It was also a last chance to change our minds again and take a different route to Lake Hawea if we wanted. Across the plains we could see that the mountains around Wanaka were covered in a lot of snow too. 

Minds made up and energy restored, we headed off in the direction of Lindis Pass...

...where snow had fallen, but nowhere near as much as when I drove through the Lindis at the same time last winter 

Heading down the north side of the Lindis Pass...

...and into Omarama with a nice coating of snow on the Benmore Range...

...past the DOC camp beside the Ahuriri River, where we stopped for a few days last spring, when the area was covered in beautiful lupins instead of surrounded by lovely snow...

... and onto a very familiar spot beside a very familiar canal where somewhere in there, is a fish (or two) swimming around with David's name on it. 

And if it rains, well you can still fish in the rain and as you can see, we have the internet, so we should be able to sit out the predicted bad weather over the weekend. And if the fish continue to elude David (this will be our fourth visit to the canals- he's had no luck on our previous visits), I'll be heading over the bridge to the salmon farm! 

I won't be telling him, that it's been a similar time of the year each visit...perhaps that what's wrong. The fish have headed to the depths to escape the cold.