Day 8 brought my full-day transfer via bus from Queenstown to Christchurch via Mt. Cook. The landscape on the drive to Mt. Cook was largely quite pretty, as most of the vistas this trip have been.
And we were even treated to a South Island Traffic Jam, that we had heard about earlier on the drive:
There were a few hundred sheep being "driven" along the highway, causing us about a 5-10 minute delay since we could only crawl slowly along with them. This is one traffic jam that I didn't mind at all being in.
About 30 minutes out from the location where we would pause before going on one of several different possible hikes at Mt. Cook, it started pouring. We continued to the hotel / lodge that seemed to be the main stopping point for anyone hoping to hike on Mt. Cook and, given the horrid conditions, we wound up just hanging out individually for about 2.5 hours before being transferred to the bus that was coming from Christchurch to make the "return" trip there. (Talk about a waste of a tour - oh well)
It was bas enough, we had a couple of refugees in the rafters, even. :-)
Finally transferred to our onward transportation, and about 30 minutes out, the rain finally broke, allowing for some more decent photo ops.
We finally arrived in Christchurch after 7pm -- a long day of about 13 hours of travel via bus. I didn't really take too much time to explore the vicinity, but this memorial was about a block away from where I went to get dinner.
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