Lake Tekapo & more!

Our train ride took us back to Christchurch where this guy decided to ditch his kidney stone and join us. Hooray!!!

Since we'd already spent a fair bit of time in Christchurch, we planned to leave Christchurch early the next morning and make the 3 1/2 hour drive down to Lake Tekapo. Lake Tekapo is right in the middle of the island and south from Christchurch. The drive was mostly through farmland, but toward the end we started heading into mountain country

The water in Lake Tekapo - and really in most of the lakes in the South Island - is bright, almost unbelievably blue. This happens because the water is fed from the Southern Alps mountains. The glaciers make something called "rock flour" when they grind up the rocks, and the silt in the water makes the color so extremely blue.

The footbridge across the end of the lake

Lake Tekapo was a cute little village. There are a lot of ski slopes nearby, so it sort of had a ski resort feel to it, complete with a hot springs. Mom and I decided that the hot springs were a good way to spend a cold afternoon, so we had a girls day, complete with massage and hot springs soak!

Lunchtime overlooking the lake & mountains - and warming up!

Hanging out at the hot springs by the lake

Toby hanging out at the hot springs cafe with free wifi - all he needed!

There are a few year-round things to see in Lake Tekapo. One is the Church of the Good Shepherd. Even though the church is not actually that old - built in the 1930s - it looks ancient. And beautiful!

View from the  church

There is also a statue of a sheepdog, which is to recognize what an important role sheepdogs have played in the lives and fortunes of people living in the area. And seeing the number of sheep that we saw in the country, it's easy to understand!

The most fun and interesting thing that we did in Lake Tekapo, though, was going to the Mt John Observatory. We actually went three times: once to check out the daytime views and have some lunch, once as the endpoint of a hike, and most excitingly, at night to see the stars!

The sky was looking overcast, but we got lucky and it cleared up right before our night tour

The little cafe on top of Mt John

The whole area around the observatory is a Dark Sky Reserve, which means that the homes and businesses within the reserve have to observe rules about the types of lights they use at night. This means that there is very little light pollution in the area, so even just looking up at the sky with your naked eye, we could see the stars more brightly than I've ever seen them before.

Our guide at the observatory told us that the local people are really happy to comply with the regulations, for one because it's good for tourism, but also because it means that they have amazing views every single night!

I didn't have any pictures from the night, since only a DSLR camera with some advanced operation could really capture it. However, they did take a picture of our group for us. If it looks like we were really really really cold, it's because we were. It was about 0 C (32 F) on top of the mountain, with a pretty good wind going. And they told us that we got really lucky with the weather - it could have been much colder and windier! Even the giant jackets they gave us to wear didn't keep me from being pretty cold by the end of the tour.

But cold aside, our observatory tour was so amazing! We got to look through lots of different telescopes and saw the Magellenic Clouds, some globular clusters, and lots of other things that I was too sleepy to remember the next morning. We also were lucky enough to see lots of shooting stars more clearly than I've ever seen them. And we also got faint glimpses of the Aurora Australis, which was just amazing!

While we hadn't planned to spend more than a day in Lake Tekapo, the weather during our time in Mt Cook was so inhospitable that we came back for a second day to do some hiking. And even though it wasn't pouring rain at Lake Tekapo, it was still pretty windy and cold.

Wearing most of the clothes we brought in multiple layers

Almost at the top!

It was extremely windy on the side of the mountain

Gandalf, I mean Toby

The views from the top were worth the cold

Even though we ended up spending more time than we'd planned in Lake Tekapo, we really enjoyed all of our time and the things we did there! The lake was beautiful, the mountain was incredible, and the town itself was fun. We were lucky we got to spend an extra day!

Not too cold to take a selfie!