Day 3

88 Miles, 5,300'
Yesterday when we arrived in Hanmer Springs, no clouds. Later in the day, some ominous clouds were rolling in over the hills.These are the Southern Alps, though they just looked like regular mountains, dry and brown or green.
Around 2:00, it started pouring, and rained most of the night. This morning there was snow on the mountains! So, we all put on all our rain gear, and headed out, but we got very lucky; no rain all day. It was cold, 44 when we left, and was under 50 the first half of the day. Beyond that, it was a great ride. First we climbed over Lewis Pass, which is only 3,000', but it took many miles to get there. We ended up climbing 4,000' to gain 2,000' in elevation.
After lunch at the pass, we headed down for a while, then a second shorted climb, then a long gradual descent into Reefton through a never-ending forest canyon along a river, lots of ferns, beautiful.