Lake tekapo

After all the LotR emotions we headed to Lake Tekapo and settled there for a couple of days. We had actually driven by the lake on our way to Christchurch but we didn't have time to stop. There is meant to be some great walking trails up into the hills here and some amazing views across the lake up into the mountains so we thought we'd add it to the itinerary and finish off the Southern Alps.

The town itself is quite small and very tourist orientated, there is good skiing here in winter along with the summer walking trails, so all year tourism for this little town, although they are also suffering with a lack or staff. They usually rely on young travellers with working visas but there haven't been as many this year apparently. With all the open restaurants fully booked we opted for some home cooking and a cheeky takeaway pizza to see us through.

We didn't actually make it up any of the major hill walks, just standing down by the lake looking up at them made us feel tired so we opted for a little lake side walk instead, and a drive up the hill. The world is against us right now however, the road up to the view point is private as its owned by the University which runs the large telescopes up there and they apparently close it on Tuesdays. Never mind, we found a couple of smaller lakes and had a wander around them instead.

The University figured out the other great thing about Lake Tekapo, it gets really dark at night, so it's amazing for star gazing. We also found out that it's possible to see the Aurora Australis, the southern hemisphere's answer to the Aurora Borealis. The colourful phenomenon is caused by solar storms on the surface of our sun creating electrically charged particles that enter the Earth's upper atmosphere at a very high speed. While technically it is happening 24/7, you need to be pretty lucky to be able to see them with the naked eye. Firstly it needs to be very dark, secondly you need a clear night, and thirdly you need a very powerful storm in exactly the right place. Scientists are able to predict the storms about half an hour in advanced so you never know what's going to happen. We just happened to be in the right place at the right time and we were rewarded with quite the show. Our phone cameras were able to pick up a lot more of the light than our naked eyes so some of the pictures look a lot more impressive than what we actually saw, but it was still an amazing and unique experience.

It was a really nice way to finish off our time in the mountains, we won't be seeing them again this trip so nice to finish with a bang.Baca selengkapnya