Our first full day in New Zealand - we decided to leave Christchurch straight away as we've had enough time in Cities these past few months and we want to get out into the countryside where the famous amazing scenary is in this country! I've printed out a driving round New Zealand guide so we decided to follow it for our first day. Mount Cook was our destination! It was a beautiful blue sky day. It was my turn to drive our campervan - I say van but its really just a people carrier with a bed and stove in it! Though we slept very comfortably last night - much better than the unstable dorm beds we've been so used to! As we got close to Mount Cook we stopped at Lake Tekapo - it was stunning! The water was the most amazing colour and crystal clear! All along the road side and around the lake there are the most beautiful colours - a bit like what i think are called Hot Pokers at home - in purples and pinks. The back drop wasnt too bad either with the stunning snow capped Mount Cook sitting beyond the lake! Was the kind of place you could sit for hours and just watch the beauty!! We teared ourselves away and had lunch around the other side of the lake then continued to drive. We passed Lake which was beautiful too - we managed to stop every 10minutes along our journey to take photos! We arrived at our campsite around 4pm (right on the lakes edge) and the lady on reception told us that tomorrow will be really poor weather so we should walk around the mountain region this evening - we took the camper and drove closer and did a short walk around, it was beautiful (but extremely windy!)

The lady was right to warn us we got up the next day and we couldnt see the beautiful snow capped mountains that had been our back drop the night before! We were very glad we'd arrived when we did!! Definately a gorgeous start to our New Zealand trip!!