Aotearoa

Sunny days are rarely clear and crisp with deep blue in New Zealand. The Maori name for New Zealand is Aotearoa, or "Land of the long white cloud". In the photo below, AJ's playing a fish we sighted in the glare of the long white cloud. There were many days where we would sit and have lunch on a fine day, watching long lines of cloud travel across the sky.
As we sat on the top of Baseline ridge on our snowshoe hike yesterday, we talked about how different cloud watching is between Alberta and New Zealand. In NZ, the long lines of clouds move rapidly across the sky. As we watched them, we knew we were sitting on a tiny island in the midst of a massive expanse of water, the land a minor interruption to the flow and movement of air. Systems might travel unimpeded thousands of km. In Alberta, as we sat on Baseline ridge yesterday, we may watch thunderstorms develop over the front ranges, but they dissipate before they reach Red Deer most days, 120km east. Cloud watching is unique in both places.
The Aotearoa cloud comes during fine weather, or on the leading edges of a new front. It's nothing to set fishing clocks to, and is a bit of a pain when it filters the sun, leaving a milky-silver glare on the water, making sighting a little tougher than you'd think.