Surreal Twizel

First of all, there have been comments that I have been parading the grumpy old man in the last two postings. This is absoluely true but I have been feeling grumpy. This is partly the fault of the weather.

It is wet in South Island, which has caused me to change my travel plans and I have given Milford Sound and Fiordland a miss. Admittedly, they are reputed to be some of the finest sighs in New Zealand. Everyone says Fiordland lives up to its name, with massive fiords cutting into the high mountains of this far south west region of the island. Not going there is therefore a bit of a disappointment. But it rains in Fiordland - seven metres of rain a year, that's 7000 millimetres - and when it rains it really does rain. And at the moment it is raining in buckets. So, another time.

So instead yesterday I drove from Cromwell to Twizel, the gateway to Mount Cook National Park. I'd tried to find accommodation elsewhere but I ended up in Twizel. This place used to be a bit of a joke. Constructed as a brand new town in 1968 to service the building of a nearby hydro-electric project, it was due to be razed to the ground following the end of the project. But by that time people had grown fond of Twizel and refused to move, so the town prospered. Located at the head of Lake Pukaki, which is filled with glacier water of an astonishing emerald green, Twizel is somewhat surreal. Little, almost identical one storey houses are dotted around on a huge lawn, bisected by incredibly wide roads, with a few shops and other buildings here and there. It has the feel of an upmarket construction camp (which of course it was) but its pristine quality - the houses looking as though they are regularly washed - lends it an air of unreality. I keep on thinking I have stumbled onto the set of The Truman show.