Category: Southern Dispatches

Temperature inversion is a reversal of the normal distribution of temperature near the ground, in which a layer of colder air is overlain by a layer of warmer air. Whereas normally air temperature usually decreases as you go higher.

There are four types: ground, turbulence, subsidence, and frontal, but in the case of large areas contained by mountains in southern New Zealand they’re a bit of of pain in May to July each winter, when they form due to a high pressure system sitting over the country.

Some winters such conditions can last for up to two weeks and when this occurs the easist solution is to drive part way up a ski area road. In the Wanaka area this comes down to either Treble Cone, The Snow Farm or Cardrona.

Looking across the Cardrona Valley from the Snow Farm access road in early July 2017

Immersion in solitude, awareness of self, quietness of the spirit, and sometimes the odd challenge – all these and more are there in our mountain landscapes, just waiting to be seen, and better yet felt.

Sometimes we’re so goal driven and yet whatever it was sometimes gets replaced: to get past stinging rain in the face, a tired body or something new and unimagined.

Here is a little slide show of my favourites scenes over the last several months. Each has a story, and the best journeys are the ones we can relive and savour as needed, or when the whim takes us.

Enjoy… just click on any thumbnail to get the show going. With exception of the featured image, a tor and rainbow in Central Otago [taken yesterday], all were captured in the West Matukituki Valley, Mt Aspiring National Park…

above: Diverse weather with a rainbow on Mt Glengyle in Mt Aspiring National Park ~ photo Donald Lousley, Southern Light

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