Our destination for today is Lake Tekapo. The drive was quite hilly and windy, and we saw a few long distance cyclists struggling up the steep inclines with their bags in tow. We thought that NZ would be a nice place to cycle – if flat. You’ve got to have some serious motivation to put yourself through the pain of these hills ;) Just after these cyclists, we saw our first NZ river. This was a brilliant milky, icy blue and was really beautiful.
We had a scheduled stop en route to Tekapo – McKenzie Country. Here was home to the “big tree” which is between 800 – 1000 years old. There were also various waterfall walks in the Peel Forest but as we arrived at lunchtime, we decided that we didn’t have enough time, as these were 3-4hrs return walks. Instead we took a peek at the tree, and enjoyed lunch listening to the sounds of the forest.
When we got to Tekapo, the clouds cleared and it seemed that just the skies around the lake were blue, giving us great views to the mountains in the distance. Then there was the brilliance of the blue lake surrounded by deep green hills – picture perfect. This lake was unlike any other lakes we’ve ever seen. The milky blue is the effect of rock flour, which is created by the movement of the ice glaciers over the mountains. This grinds the rock into a fine white powder that floats in the water…
We set up camp, and discovered that we had to pay $2 to use the showers!! We then headed into the town and got some info about the observatory. Evelyn wasn’t feeling too well, and wasn’t sure about doing the tour, but it’s one of the reasons we came. So we made dinner by the lake and watched the sunset change the colour of the mountains, as we took a walk around the lake. This was a really beautiful evening, and looked for perfect for viewing stars :)
With weather being such an unstable thing the observatory tour only gets confirmed 1 hour before so we popped into the shop and managed to get 2 of the remaining 3 spots ;) lucky us. We just made sure we dressed really warm as Marc seems to have gotten better but Ev’s cold is getting worse.
The bus left the village round 10.30 and got to the top of Mount John at 11pm. The ride up was quite interesting as in the surrounding area you have to use your park lights only, so to add to the steep, windy road up the hill you could barely see where the bus was going. Then about 500m before the observatory it becomes a no light area…
We soon understood the reasons behind this when we were told that when the astronomers are doing their research they need dark surroundings and light would hamper their observations. We were also told that the surrounding area is a low light area and when we spotted a car coming from the distance we could understand why. The brightness of the lights was so strong that if you were looking through one of the really strong telescopes it would obstruct your view.
We all walked up the last bit of the hill to one of the huge telescopes (180x) in one of the domes. Our guide then programmed the telescope to see various stars - Taurus, Orion, the Southern Cross pointers (only seen in the southern hemisphere), nebulas (gas clouds), the milky way and planets such as Alpha Centauri (the brightest star & is actually 2 stars), Sirius (the closest star at 4 light years away) & Saturn with its rings. It was so amazing to see and you start realising just how huge the universe really is and how small & insignificant Earth is. With the magnification you see so much more detail and one star seen with the naked eye may actually be made up of several stars. Around midnight we headed back as the next group had arrived, but not before spotting a few shooting stars.
When we drove back to the campsite from the village we discovered that the barrier to the car park had been locked, so we had to park up and walk the last 500m to the tent in the cold and dark ;(
After a good nights sleep, one of the best we’ve had in a tent (we didn’t wake until 10am, partly due to not waking up from the scorching heat), we got some change for the showers, collected the car, and then headed down to the cute little church and the collie dog statue erected to recognise the contribution the sheep dog has made to life in the area.
With the sun shining again, we took a short walk along the lake, before heading back up to the observatory to see what it was like in the daytime. We ended up admiring the views, then just laying down on the side of the hill, listening to the peace and quiet.
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