Recently the newspapers have been reporting that it's been cold down here. Last Sunday was the third coldest day in Queenstown on record (for July, at least). We've now had 3 weeks straight of frosty mornings, and Queenstown got down to -7, with -9 and -13 in places like Arrowtown. Frosts day after day mean hoar frosts down here (frost in the morning that doesn't melt during the day, with a new frost on top the following morning). In some places the frost has built up to 8 inches thick and looks like snow. There is also still a bit of snow around in places from the fall to lake level over 2 weeks ago - which is pretty much unheard of. Our driveway has had permanent ice on it for nearly 2 weeks, making getting the car out of the garage a bit more interesting each morning!
Unfortunately there hasn't been any fresh snow to accompany the cold weather, but we're making the most of the sunshine during the day and getting out and doing some of the things that we'd normally do in spring. So yesterday we headed back up Mt Crichton to get a bit of fresh air and get out of the house. In the bush it's relatively warm, but in the clearings there's still a bit of snow around from 2 weeks ago, and the hoar frost has built up on top since then creating awesome ice crystals. Some of them are 2-3 inches long.
We continued on up to the lookout over Lake Dispute, which we've shown you all before: http://gregandandreajarvis.blogspot.com/2009/03/lake-dispute.html but this time around it's a little more impressive:
