Category: New Zealand

We stayed in Haast under a roof for two nights because the 3rd round of heavy rain in just over a week was scheduled to crash down on the West Coast on our second night. Unlike the previous one-to-three day events, this one would blast through in just a few hours, but with the ability…

With a short-ish day today, we didn’t set an alarm, and took our time getting up and out of the tent. But that wasn’t enough to avoid the sandflies! Since our skin was again well-covered for the 45F morning, they had a minimal chance of actually biting us (thankfully they don’t seem to go too…

6.9 inches of rain fell over the last two days, which would be a pretty significant event in most places, but here there were no warnings or watches this time. Still, that brings the six-day total to more than 16 inches of rain, nearly half of what Seattle gets in an entire year. But now…

Two and a half days of extreme rain will be followed by two more days of less-extreme though still-significant rain. But in between, we were granted a single day of dry, sunny skies. The two glaciers here in “Glacier Country” flow surprisingly-close to sea-level, but not close enough that you can just walk up to…

A combination of luck, 21st-century weather forecasting, and our ability to go slow, means we haven’t ridden through rain in an unbelievably long time. So long that I can’t even remember the last time. We certainly haven’t gotten wet in New Zealand (despite the frequent rain!), and I don’t think it happened last summer in…