Lake Tekapo is simply the most beautiful place I have been to. I arrived in the late afternoon just as the sun was setting which was a pretty good start but it just got better.

At night the stars were so bright you could almost touch them. There is an observatory here and I can understand why! I have done a fair bit of star gazing on the trip but nothing as clear as this. The Milky Way was stunning and could clearly see the two Magelanic clouds (whole other galaxies I learnt about on the Awestronomy tour in Monkey Mia), I even saw my first ever shooting star - cool!

In the morning there was a heavy frost and all the windows in the van were frozen but I had stayed pretty warm thanks to my sleep sheet, sleeping bag and duvet! I headed off to walk up Mt John around 8:30 in the morning so was still pretty cold. I wrapped up warm with several layers topped off with my beanie! The first part of the Mt John walk involved a pretty steep climb straight to the top. By this time i was down to shorts and a t-shirt! As the sun rose higher in the sky there was a formation of clouds that sat just in front of the mountain tops. This meant that the sun shown down on the mountains behind the cloud creating an eery but beautiful effect. I continued along the top of Mt John before heading down to the lake returning along the shorefront. After a warm cup of coffee I headed to the Cowan Hill Lookout walk which takes you up a hill at the back of the village giving you more remarkable views of the village and lake framed by the snowy mountains that were now in full view! I spent about half an hour just absorbing the outstanding view before dragging myself away.

I then set off back to Christchurch which was another ***** drive (please provide your own superlative, I'm out!).

In summary I rather liked Lake Tekapo!