21 January:
Carly's birthday!! We woke up early today to make the most of the time. Ed & Sara took us both to a cafe for breakfast, their treat for Carlys birthday. They got her a birthday card & a cake & my card meant that she did get 2 cards to open! The breakfast was gorgeous & the views to Mt Hutt were immense.
We didn't waste too much time in town, just stopped in an information centre & picked up some details of a couple horse trekking companys. Thats where we headed next.
All of us are inexperienced riders, so all had a few nerves to make us sweat! Add that to the scorching sunshine that we had & we were melting. The tour guide, Bert was a really cool guy & a bit of a comedian. He gave us all a horse each, Carly's was Johnny, Sara's was Charlie, Ed's was Pattie & mine was Storm. Turns out mine was named randomly, not for his temperement. The actual ride was really good fun & the scenery we took in was some of the best we've seen on our travels. We crossed rivers on the horses & Bert led Carly's horse into deep water, she got dunked to the waist.
After the trek Bert brought out drinks & cake & we all sat in his garden admiring his view & laid back attitude towards life.
The best was yet to come, we drove to Lake Tekapo & couldn't believe our eyes. The colour of the water & the mountains as the backdrop just takes your breath away. We took a few snaps with our new camera, skimmed some stones, then carried on to Lake Pukaki. This was even more immense & the backdrop was Mt Cook, the tallest mountain in NZ. The peaks were still covered in snow even though at ground level the temperature was well into the 30's. We camped as close as you could get to the lake and watched a beautiful sunset the light was shining on Mount Cook and there was a rainbow on the otherside!Felt like it wasn't realy what you were looking at just a picture!
The best part for me was that Carly said it was her most memorable birthday yet, it was definitely a day to remember.

22 January:
We loved camping out at the lake so much that we decided to do the same again tonight. We left our camp spot nice & early & headed up to Mount Cook salmon farm. We got to feed the fish & bought a 2kg salmon for tea. We grabbed more supplies from Lake Teakapo resort, then headed back to Lake Pukaki for the day. We found an even better spot right on the waters edge, with no-one else around. We swam in the lake & took some fun photos.
In the evening we cooked up the salmon, ote to self never ever buy a whole salmon, stick to the fillet variety. It was the best salmon everthough as it was so fresh! We then watched the sunset before lighting a nice little fire on the beach. Can't explain just how nice it is here & how relaxed we are all feeling (apart from my hayfever!).