Hiking in the rain, train in the sun

Another day waking up early (6:45 am)... At 8:30 am I took a shuttle van to Arthur's Pass, a place in the mountain - a National Park in fact - supposed to have beautiful hiking trails as well as a good likelihood to see keas. Well, to be honest, the keas were the main reason why I wanted to go there. Unfortunately, I had chosen the most rainy day of the week. The closer the van got to the mountains the worse got the weather. Just before Arthur's Pass the rain started. Well, I was prepared for that, but, obviously, it was not very nice either. It really rained cats and dogs. Anyway, I wanted to go at least for some shorter hike and decided to take the trail up to the Devils Punchbowl Waterfall. In the beginning, I had to pass some kind of little stream, what normally should not be a problem at all, but it was filling up because of the rain. The way up to the waterfall is nice, but steep though. The forest was very different to those I had been to the last weeks, more similar to Europe, almost no ferns, way more mosses instead. Honestly, due to the rain it was not so much fun as it could be in better weather, however, I kind of enjoyed it. Because of the rain I could not take many photos either. Anyway, I went up to the waterfall and down again. Since the trail was a bit steep at some places the rain was already about turning the trail into small streams. It was definetely time to go down again. The stream from the beginning had filled up, almost no chance to get back with dry feet. Back in the village, I spent some two hours in a café. It just did not make sense to get more wet. At about 3 pm the rain stopped and the beautiful mountains got visible. I had about one hour to stroll a bit around the village and to enjoy the landscape. Well, wasn't their another reason, I wanted to go Arthur's Pass? Do you remember? Of course, the keas. In terms of this, I was not lucky🙁I did not spot any; only the bronze one at the kea kiosk🙃 I hope, to get at least one more chance to see keas. Just after 4 pm the Tranz Alpine train arrived to Arthur's Pass. I went back to Christchurch on that train. It is a pure tourist train, but it was quite something. In the good weather now, the views from the train were gorgeous and by the provided headphones you could get a lot of interesting information about the areas we passed through. Even though much rain and no keas another nice day in New Zealand😀Read more