Christchurch to Lake Tekapo

Today has been one of our worst weather days in Australia and New Zealand so far, and maybe the top 5 for our whole trip. It poured with rain all night and all day. Night slightly turned into the day, but it was so dark and gray that we managed to sleep well past sunrise, because the sun never showed its face.

We spent the morning trying to work out where to store some of our things to make them more accessible. It took some creativity, and some patience, as there is not a lot of storage space or room to move around. With the weather being horrible, we couldn't get out of the van to move around, but it did give us an excuse not to wander around town and try to organize the van without feeling like we were wasting time exploring.

Once we were a bit more organized, we ventured into Christchurch for some lunch and to get some groceries. It was still chucking it down, so exploring Christchurch on foot was off the cards and the traffic was horrible. We'll be back in Christchurch in about a week in the evening, so that might be a better time to check out some of the pretty buildings.

Fueled up and food put away, we were on the road to Lake Tekapo, a little village on the edge of, you guessed it, Lake Tekapo. Unfortunately, it was raining there too, and a few degrees colder. We ran out to get some pictures of the church and the lake, which looked a bit gray rather than glacial blue like it would without the rain and clouds. It was still picturesque with the cute little stone church at the side of the lake and the mountains as backdrop.

A few paces from the church up a gravel path was a sheepdog memorial. It was erected by the villagers to commemorate all the yardwork that sheepdogs did to help the community. It was a really cute memorial, and had us thinking of our own sheepdog. We got in the car and drove around the corner into town, about 5 minutes. Allan walked across a short foot bridge to get another picture of the church from afar. Then we were on our way to our campsite for the night.

We camped at Lake Pukaki, about half an hour from Lake Tekapo. It seemed like a good jumping off point to Mount Cook in the morning and a nice place to camp right next to the lake. It was still raining, so we had to navigate in our close confines of the van to make wraps and boil some water for tea with our camp stove. It's not ideal, but I suppose it could be worse! We had some cell signal, so we hotspotted the computer and managed to watch an hour of Netflix before getting ready for bed. By now it was very cold, so extra layers and huddling together for warmth were necessary. Based on the weather forecast this should be our coldest night in the van (1°C) and I hope it stays that way!もっと詳しく