It’s nice to have fallen back into an easy exchange of banter with Kit, and the back-and-forth asides continue in light-hearted earnest as he drives us along the highway towards town. I tease him about the photo he sent to Bonnie while she was still in England, of me and Tui beside the penguin statue in Oamaru, telling him that really, he is the reason I was outed. When I ask after Allie, he tells me that she is well and loving life in the city, but doesn’t elaborate further than a vague ‘I had a few days off’ when I ask what prompted this visit.

‘Do you love city life, too?’ I ask, turning my head towards the window to take in the blue sweep of Lake Wakatipu. No matter how many times I see it, I am always moved by its quiet beauty. When Kit doesn’t reply straight away, I glance back at him, noticing again how smartly he is dressed, and how neatly he’s brushed back his tight black curls.

‘It certainly looks good on you,’ I tell him, gratified when he grins across at me.

‘I don’t think that’s Wellington,’ he says. ‘I reckon it’s being back here again.’

‘I’m glad it’s working for one of us,’ I joke, plucking unenthusiastically at the material of my scruffy T-shirt. ‘If you’d agreed to pass by my brand-new flat, I could have run in and got changed.’

‘There was no need.’ Kit slows down to allow two elderly ladies clutching walking sticks to cross the road. ‘You look fine as you are.’

Unsure whether he is winding me up again, I say nothing, but it’s impossible not to feel cheered just by hanging out with him again. I had forgotten how easy he is to be around, and how alive he makes me feel.

The trail up to the top of Queenstown Hill begins on the immediate outskirts of the town centre, not far from where the pair of us ventured the first time we went out on an afternoon alone. The weeks spent working daily at the stables have strengthened my muscles and improved my fitness, and this time I don’t find the first part of the climb as arduous as I did before. Similarly to the Tiki Trail, the path here is also shaded by vast Douglas firs, but there are fewer roots to trip over this time, and we see fewer people on our way up.

Kit continues to natter away to me as we walk, pointing out curious stacks of flat stones, a tiny doorway that someone has carved into the stump of a felled tree, and all the birds that flit and fly from bush to branch above us, singing to one another almost as sweetly as Tui does to Beavis.

As the path continues to snake upwards, Kit points out a sign set back amongst the sparse undergrowth.