The colour of the day

Awaking to bright sunshine was a real pleasure :)  It seems yesterday's wet weather was only short lived and passed over very quickly.  

Decided to take the back road from the camp I stayed at last night round Lake Aviemore/Waitaki River then over Benmore, second of the 3 hydro dams, before following the more usual route to Twizel.  Stunning scenery, plenty of people out on their bikes along the A2O track, lots of sunshine, big blue skies and parched summer grasses.  A little concerning to see some of the trees looking like they're about ready to change into their autumn coats already - we should still have a good month or so of summery weather ahead of us.   

Arrived at my go-to camp on the banks of the Ohau Canal and just managed to find a space to fit my van - it's looking a bit busier than I've seen before.  After parking I said hello to my new neighbours then joined them for a late afternoon drink.  Not too far into the conversation we discovered that I know their daughter having worked at the same school as A for many years!  Such a New Zealand thing - 6 degrees of separation is vastly overstated - we seem to operate on just 2 degrees down here!!  

A new record in the COVID stats - 2,522 new community cases reported today with 100 in hospital.  Fortunately, zero in ICU.