We left Dunedin by Magic Bus on Monday 20 Sept at 08:20 heading for Lake Tekapo. We planned to spend just the one night there and how right we were. When we were told the main convenience store was the petrol station we knew the place would be small.

On the way to Lake Tekapo we stopped off at Moeraki Boulders, which are huge rocks scattered across the seashore renowned for their spherical shape. Our 2nd stop was at Oamaru, a Victorian style village, just to go to the supermarket as Lake Tekapo doesn't have a proper supermarket.

We then passed the Benmore Dam the largest earth dam in the Southern Hemisphere and into Lake Tekapo.

We checked into the Lakefront Backpackers Lodge and then walked into the tiny town to the famous Church of the Good Shepherd and the Border Collie dog statue on the lakeside. Neither are overly impressive but do look pretty stunning with the snowcapped mountains as a backdrop.

The evening was spent sitting in the hostel lounge talking to other travellers, cooking pasta in the kitchen and loading our photos onto the laptop. We also watched the TV and couldn't believe that a serious storm had hit Invercargill in the South of the Island. We were really close to booking a car to drive from Dunedin through an area called Catlins and on to Invercargill. It meant that we would have stayed a little longer but finally chose to move on to Tekapo instead. Lucky we did as the storm damaged a number of structures with the worst being the city's stadium; its roof fell in and they now need to rebuild it.
Another close shave.

We woke in the morning ready to move onto Christchurch. Probably not the wisest thing to do only two weeks after the coutries worst earthquake in >70 years!! Fingers crossed all goes ok if you don't get a blog update after this......assume the worst!!!!