We ascended through a dried moss laden bush forest into the long white cloud that shrouded the ridges of Paparoa.  The clouds are what brought me back.  I'd been lost, unaware of the beauty surrounding me for awhile.  But the clouds brought me back.  An evening stroll from the Croesus Hut through the tussock fields above as the day gave way to a descending twilight, reopened my blinded eyes.  The company of two new friends overlooking the valley below was an antidote to an illness I had been temporarily stricken with.  An illness of disillusionment and uninspired times.  But a jaunt into the mountains is always good medicine to an apathetic soul.  Even as we descended I continued to ascend to a higher standing.

The holidays were great, with the cheer of a Kiwi family and plenty of food and drink.  The New year came in peacefully in the town of Karamea with a great group of people who live in a wonderful community at the end of the road on the Northern West Coast of the South Island.  Days have been passing by with lots of swimming, fishing and roving through the perpetually green forests.  I've made it to Nelson and will enjoy the next few weeks of real summer weather in the sunniest place in NZ.

The clouds have been swept away as the sun takes over after the storm has passed.  The hillsides glow, overflowing with trees of the brightest green imaginable.  The Tasman Sea churns incessantly beating down the rocks and sand.  But the tea colored river, swollen with fresh fallen rain flows with grace, beauty and a calm that brings peace to my overactive mind.