Daily Photo – Lake Hayes

At Lake Hayes, the weather was starting to break. The heavy, overcast gloom and constant threat of rain was giving way to still, settled-yet cold-conditions. I pulled into a relatively empty car park and went for a stroll along one of the tracks that followed the shore. The full loop is a picturesque and enchanting 8-kilometre (5-mile), two-hour walk around the lake’s edge. On a different day I’d have embraced the track and set off for a decent walk, but time wasn’t on my side. Instead, I stood by the water’s edge, taking in the near-perfect mountain reflections in front of me.

The lake was still, like a sheet of glass stretching all the way to the distant shore, creating a flawless, crystal-clear mirror image of the mountains across the horizon while wildlife lazily pushed through the reeds near my feet. Only the steady hum of the motorway behind me, with its chaotic rhythm, broke up the tranquillity of this peaceful oasis. It couldn’t last. It didn’t last. Just as I pulled out of the car park and bravely rejoined the stream of traffic, an annoyance of British campervans arrived and began setting up a corral in the very car park I’d just vacated. Hungry and thirsty, I slipped into the traffic flow heading for Cromwell, roughly 45 kilometres (27 miles) away, passing through the wonderful Gibbston Valley and Kawarau Gorge – an ever-changing journey of spectacular mountain peaks, deep ravines, with a striking yet imposing river.