Milford Sound marked the end of our biggest adventures on the south island and so we started making our way back to Christchurch. Lake Tekapo is situated perfectly between the two so it became our next destination.
This part of the road trip was neat because we were able to watch New Zealand morph from mountains and glaciers to lakes and valleys to flat golden plains and back to mountains.
We had hours of driving on the schedule, but not too many that we couldn't stop and explore whatever caught our attention.
^^ mount luxmore and kepler track from afar
^^ a glimpse at new zealand prices...
^^ more fish n' chips, of course
^^ sandfly bites...they. itch. so. bad. i drowned mine in StingEze about every 5 minutes for days. and i still have marks on my feet from them! of course they didn't affect greg at all...
^^ i love ferns
^^ fern bench!
^^ kawarau river...really that vibrant color
^^ kawarau bridge bungy. no, we didn't shell out $180 for the dive.
^^ that simple
^^ pine cone as big as his head!
Around Cromwell, there are huge fruit stands off every road selling some of the most delicious fruit ever. And miles and miles of orchards! I wanted to buy everything. Heaven...
^^ central otago region is just incredible. it's a very brown landscape, but with these immensely vibrant turquoise lakes that stretch for miles. jaw-dropping.
^^ mount cook
^^ an unfortunately late jumping picture
Lake Tekapo is supposed to be, literally, one of the best places in the world to stargaze because it's in the middle of the south island away from most light pollution and also, the ozone is super thin. We pulled up on a cloudless day, excited at the prospect of taking in the night sky.
So much so that we hiked up the mountain by the observatory to watch the sunset and get the best view.
But mother nature had other plans.
Juuuuuust after the sun had gone down, these clouds started rolling in. Out of nowhere.
We saw about 4 stars before the sky was completely covered. Kind of a huge bummer!
And then we realized that neither of us had packed a headlamp for the trek down...oops. Not exactly what I'd had in mind for the night but we did get to relax in the hot pools and ohhhhhhhhh hot pools.
The technicals: we retraced our route from Milford Sound back to Queenstown and then headed north to Lake Tekapo on the 8, covering 530 kilometers. Only regret is that I didn't stop and add my cairn with the hundreds of other random cairns along the highway just outside one of the towns. Also noteworthy, gas averaged $2.15/liter (LITER) throughout this whole shindig. Now go fuel up your car and be thankful.
Have a great day :-)
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