Tekapo

Oh you really, really ridiculously good looking country, you!

Our journey took us from Christchurch to Lake Tekapo. This small village is one of the top spots in the world for stargazing! While writing this we are not out hurting our necks because it is cloudy today. But last night it was mostly clear so we had some amazing views at the stars there.

On top of the local Mt John is also an observatory taking advantage of these prime conditions. When we climbed the mountain today they had some telescopes set up on the summit through which we could see the sun (a red ball with visible sunspot activity) and one of the glaciers of the southern alps, as we are now pretty close to the real mountains. Really impressive! This was supposed to be the first spot from which New Zealands highest mountain Mt Cook was visible. But it turned out to be a shy one and hid behind some clouds. Doesn't matter, we'll get another crack at it!

But the view from the summit over the surrounding plains, the really blue lake and a long line of snow capped mountains was superb nonetheless.Read more