Arthurs Pass NZ (south island)

Weather had improved a lot when we left Greymouth, but unfortunately when we arrived at Arthurs pass it was raining. Accomodation was good as it was a small cottage, with a great wood fire! We went out for a short walk as it was raining, and halfway round Jack slipped and fell a few feet onto her side, bit of a nasty fall, but just come off with some bad bruising. We called it a day and Jack hobbled back. On our return to the cottage we met two kiwi's, who were staying the night as they had been locked out of there accomodation down the road. We started off with a few bottle's of wine, but some German lads turned up and one of the Kiwi's brought a litre bottle of gin out (big mistake) and we finished it between us, and Jacks pain subsided! Next morining we got up and did a nice open view walk over Beasley Spur, with some superb views, on our return we met an American couple, but had an early night this time round.
We were woken up at about 5am as a storm came in with hugh lightening and thunder that rocked the windows, by the time we got up the roads had turned into rivers, and it was raining 2 inches every hour. We decided to go for the east coast and the roads were horrendous, slips had come from the sides and the road was deep in water in parts, a tree occupied half the road at one point, after about half an hour we got throught the worst and later on arrived in Akaroa, where we realised that we had left our food bag in the fridge! The next days paper told us that the river rose the highest in 150 years and burst it's banks and the road we travelled on was closed after we had gone throught it!