Sunday started out absolutely gorgeous.

A word about New Zealand weather. An Australian woman on one of our tours warned us that we had to wear sunscreen all of the time in NZ, “even in the rain,” because the hole in the ozone layer is over NZ. Google says this is not technically true — the hole is over Antarctica — but it is close. NZ does have naturally lower ozone levels than most of the world, and higher UV radiation levels. In addition, during the spring (now), ozone depleted air plumes drift from Antarctica to NZ, intensifying the effect.

What does that mean in practical terms? Yesterday when we checked out of our hotel at 9:00 a.m., it was 47 degrees and sunny, and it felt like 60 degrees. I had to take my jacket off when it got up to 52 degrees (and I am usually cold long after other people are too warm). After our first walk, I had to take off my long-sleeved shirt; it was 60 degrees and I was walking in a t-shirt. In real life, I would still have had my fleece jacket on over my two layers.

So anyway, Sunday started out with gorgeous sunshine and the perfect temperature for taking a walk. We checked out of our hotel and took the short Kea Point track, which leads to a gorgeous lookout.

Kea Point is named for the kea bird, which is a type of parrot found only in NZ. They are apparently very smart; they sound a lot like crows, only way more colorful. There is a colony of keas that hang out at Kea Point, but, sadly, we did not see any.

We next walked a bit of the Hooker Valley trek that Rich did on Saturday, but I was not enjoying it and wanted to save my feet (walking on gravel paths gets old after a few miles) for our next walk, so we turned back and headed for Tasman Lake, which is a short drive from Aoraki.

Tasman lake is a proglacier lake, which means that it was formed by a melting glacier. It is a beautiful milky blue color and is full of small pieces of glacier.

We walked to the lake and then walked to an overlook of the Tasman River, which is the same milky blue.

We then headed toward the happening town of Twizel. On the way, we stopped at a couple of really beautiful turnouts. At Lake Pukaki, which is so incredibly reflective it is surreal, the insta-boyfriends were out in force and honestly I could’ve watched the instagrammers pose for hours.

In Twizel, we tried one of NZ’s national foods, meat pies. Very tasty! After our snack, we picked up a salad at the grocery store to supplement the charcuterie board dinner we were going to have and headed to Skyscape, our home for two nights.

Skyscape was a bit of a splurge and a bit of a gamble which is probably not going to pay off. It is a glass tiny home (including the ceiling) deep in the Dark Sky Reserve designed for maximum star gazing. Unfortunately, the forecast calls for rain, so our view looked like this:

We enjoyed our wine, salad, and charcuterie dinner and a nice soak in the hot tub, but we saw exactly zero stars. You can’t win them all.

Monday is listed as “rest day” on our schedule, and given the weather forecast, it will be the perfect day to relax and catch up on some reading. It doesn’t look like the skies will be any clearer for our second (and last) night at Skyscape, but hope springs eternal.