Beauty preceding heinousness

Woke up this morning with plans to head up to Mt. Cook Village. I noticed three things straight off the bat: (1) alarmingly strong winds, (2) this stunning rainbow over the mountains, and (3) no mountains--as they were obstructed by the massive storm producing both the rainbow and the winds. We're talking evil blackness blanketing the mountainous region I was preparing to enter. So I did what any sensible person would do. I went anyway.

It rained all day and night and into the wee hours of the next day. That evening I parked my Subaru with the campervans at the DOC campground (the tent sites were flooded) and somehow it weathered the most heinous weather I've ever experienced: literally continuous and blinding lightning strikes ALL night, simultaneous massive booms of thunder (as the lightning was overhead), winds so strong they blew my side mirrors off-kilter and actually shattered the windscreen of a campervan parked nearby, and ceaseless rain and hail. I slept very little.

This shot was taken in front of Pukaki Canal, north of Twizel (where I found the tern yesterday), before I headed up into the meteorological madness. The water is a brilliant turquoise, just like in the surrounding lakes--a color created by the sun striking the glacial flour (or dust) suspended in this meltwater of the nearby Alps.