Queenstown to Lake Tekapo (22 Jun 09)

This was another long journey if you were traveling straight to Queenstown. I had a little stopover at Lake Tekapo as I got some days to spare. In the morning, we traveled through the twisting bends of Kawarau Gorge and taking in the views of my last reminding days in New Zealand. We stopped at Cornwell again for breakfast, the place where the big fruits sculptures are and getting stock up for picnic at Lake Pukaki.

Lake Pukaki is one of the lakes formed by a glacial retreat. It is turquoise in color due to the light being reflected off the tiny particles of granite ground. But I don’t really find it that way, maybe I had slight color blind or the weather was not clear…

Along the way, you could get off and go to Twizel and make your way to Mt Cook, New Zealand’s highest mountain. This is a place that I missed too, however, I did manage to get to Lake Tekapo.

Lake Tekapo is a small village with no ATMs, but no fear, you can cash out some money at the petrol station. The village sits beside the lake and the jagged ridge line of the Southern Alps. I took a cruise along the lake and again, I find that it was just a lake with many snow capped mountains. Though the guide did explain this is Prince Edward Mountain, there is Mount Cook, but it all looks the same to me… This I felt is money not well spent, maybe I should have just walk some trails and get the information from i-site rather than finding some cruise to take.

You can find one the most photographed Church at Lake Tekapo, the Church of Good Shepherd. This is the first church built in the Mackenzie Basin. The church is a very small tiny building nia. Well, if you got vehicle, you could drive to a salmon farm and get cheap, fresh salmons... Argh, I don't have a car!!!

I stayed at the YHA hostel and the location is very good as it is situated just beside the lake. Most importantly I stayed at the legendary Room 7. This room has a Disney theme, so there are Disney characters on the wall. There are 2 heaters, hence it was very warm to sleep at night. Somemore, Room 7 also overlooks the lake, hence when you wake up in the morning, you get nice scenic view.

At this YHA, I get to know some nice traveling mates from Hong Kong and Taiwan. At night, we went for star gazing. Lake Tekapo is one of area that had the clearest night skies in the world. The clarity of the constellations is really magnificent and I could even see the milky way. The only light pollution is us taking the torch light trying to find a good spot to take photos. This is the only other place that I managed to see a milky way, the first is at the apple orchard farm at Napier.