Blogs from Lake Tekapo, South Island, New Zealand, Oceania - page 2

Travelled over the mountains through low cloud and patchy rain.... taking the road to Mount Cook where the weather started to deteriorate further. The road there, runs for about 50km alongside Lake Pukaki which, despite the weather was still a vivid turquoise. On our previous visit in 2009 we had encountered many curious Kea, the native mountain parrot renowned for its destruction of vehicles (removal of windscreen wipers, vehicle trim and anything not secured well to the vehicle!). Despite attempts to locate them we are sad to say we didn't see a single one! There is much controversy here over "1080" poison which is being used to eradicate the non native mammals (possom, stoat, weasels), with suggestion it is wiping out native wildlife and particularly birds too? It is a tough debate as birds are suffering ... read more

Had a couple wild days in Queenstown. The day after bungy jumping I did the louging. It was really fun. Very similar to go karting, but there's no gas, you just use gravity to go. It's crazy how fast you can go though. The first Saturday of the month in New Zealand is "crate day," which is when everyone sits in the park and drinks a crate of beer (12 bottles). I didn't partake, but observing was pretty fun. It turned out to be a beautiful day and was a great scene. People just hanging out, throwing a rugby ball around, lying in the sun. There were tons of crates in the river keeping the beer cold. Decided to stream the last 5 minutes of the flames game and saw one of the craziest endings to ... read more

Unfortunately for the town of Tekapo, route 8 runs right through it, close to the lake, leaving little room for the town to develop gracefully. There is quite a bit of construction on the waterfront now and the town has some mediocre restaurants and a small, expensive grocery store. But the Mt. John loop made up for all this. It begins about a km or so from the town, close to the hot pools and the snow park cleverly built under the cold shadow of Mt. John. Taking the path along the water rather than the quick ascent through the pine forest, the icy trail rises slowly to incredible views of the intensely blue Lake Tekapo, with a backdrop of white backgrounds in the distance. The trail goes along the side of the mountain so once ... read more

Even the rain could not put a downer on our mood the first night and morning in the van. We had a fair amount of driving to do and our first proper stop was lake tekapo (not lake teapot as my autocorrect would have you believe). This is truly an incredibly scenic spot, a small stone church nestles on the lakeside, picture postcard pretty with the bluest of blue waters, surrounded by rugged hills and mountains. We climbed mount john, the site of a famous observatory and took a proper long look at the lake from every angle. The next day we returned on a night time star gazing tour. The headlights were turned off on the minivan as we wound our way up the mountain road (quite a nerve wracking experience when there are sheer ... read more

In the morning it was finally time to say goodbye to Queenstown, it was a dad day for me, I could have stayed there for much longer. We said our goodbyes to the only remaining survivors Max, Billie and Zoe then jumped on the bus. There had been a sprinkling of snow overnight on the top of the mountains surrounding Queenstown which made it look even nicer. En route to Lake Tekapo we stopped off at another lake which was the nicest, brightest, I've blue coloured lake I have ever seen! We then carried on to Tekapo which is known as 'The Gateway to the Universe' because it has some of the best views of space in the whole world. As I love space and stars (it fascinated me as a youngster) me, Freeman, Vicky and ... read more