Well, it’s been a few days since our last update due to the lack of reliable WiFi. So what have we done ??
We spent our last day in Christchurch relaxing and eating; we visited the art gallery, the arts centre and explored the park in the glorious sunshine. We found a great Spanish restaurant close to the botanical gardens and enjoyed a fantastic lunch of tapas and paella. We also had ice cream 🙂
Our trip to the the art gallery was interesting; we saw a real cross section of New Zealand modern art but there is always one weirdo on exhibition !
We’ve picked up our camper van on Thursday morning and the adventure began !
We travelled from Christchurch to Lake Tekapo and arrived in the evening, just as the heavens opened and it hammered it down all night ! We were supposed to go on an observatory tour that evening but it was cancelled due to the bad weather. Fortunately we knew in good time, so we wandered out for a steak instead.
On Friday the weather was amazing. Odie got up at 0600 to try to catch the morning light over the Church of the Good Shepherd. It wasn’t a great sunrise but it is still a beautiful place in the morning stillness. Until the Chinese arrived at 0800….
After Odie got back we walked along the lake and visited the Church of the Good Shepherd in daylight and took in the Mackenzie Sheep Dog statue. The rest of the day was filled with domestics like shopping for food (as supermarkets are few and far between) plus sorting out the electricity to our camper van after someone had turned off the master supply three pitches away. Morons.
That evening Odie found he had a slot on the observatory tour that was cancelled the day before. Unfortunately there was only one space so Sue had to take one for the team 🙁 Odie was collected at 0030 (yes that’s right) and went on a group tour to the Mt John Observatory. After listening to the presentation and looking through a couple of telescopes he snuck off to take some astro photos. What do you think for a first attempt? Was it worth him getting to bed at 0315.
Saturday was another beautiful day so we decided to walk the Mt John circular route, returning via the Lake Tekapo shore. It was very steep to start as we climbed through pine forest before crossing open land to the observatory Odie was at the night before. The route markers said it should take about 3.5hrs to complete the circuit; obviously they didn’t have Sherpa Miller in mind when they calculated the time ! Moving up the path with the agility of mountain goats we completed the whole thing in 2hrs.
The views of Tekapo and Lake Alexandrina were stunning, especially Tekapo. It is an amazing shade of turquoise blue and the photos don’t do it justice.
After a camper van lunch, we departed for Mt Cook. Farewell Tekapo, you were beautiful.