Clutha river

This morning began with endlessly hanging around for this guy I had offered a lift to, mainly because he seemed more interested in talking about his recently broken heart than packing up. He was starting the Te Araroa trail by hitching a ride with me to Invercargill which could seem like a bit of a cheat but no judgement from me as it is a horrible section primarily along a busy road.
I then began my journey North which for a large part followed the old gold trail along the Clutha river. Great to be back in the land of the sparkling turquoise waters again, not hard to imagine the treasures that lie in its depths. What was not so enjoyable was leaving the cloudy, windy, comfortable temperature of 11degrees in Bluff and watching the temperature rise all the way to 29 degrees, it is a bizarre land for weather. Passed many shadeless pastures filled with merino sheep and tried to imagine what it must feel like to be covered in all that wool in temperatures like that, I was in my bikini top with the air conditioning on and still hot, the mind boggles.
On the subject of automation; on the one hand I stopped at some toilets where the door shut automatically, locked automatically, played jazz music to you, dispensed toilet paper automatically and flushed automatically when you washed your hands. On the other hand they have human traffic lights. At all the road works you have a couple of guys with radios and a stop and go sign, not that I don’t approve but it struck me as a strange dichotomy. I liked the jazz music though.