Our drive across to Lake Tekapo from Queenstown was a delight and for the first time on our trip we both uttered the word ‘wow’ as we drove up alongside Lake Ruataniwha.
“We were so stunned by it that we pulled over in the car and just stood looking at it in awe.”
It was a lake like no other we had seen, with bright turquoise water glistening under the sun it looked fake, like it didn’t belong there.
We were so stunned by it that we pulled over in the car and just stood looking at it in awe. We did eventually continue our drive to Lake Tekapo and passed by numerous canals and reservoirs filled with the mesmerising bright blue glacial water.
“Rich and I donned our swimmers and headed to the lake for a swim.”
Seven hundred and ten metres above sea level, Lake Tekapo is New Zealand’s highest big lake. Filled with freezing cold glacial water it too shone bright turquoise under the bright sun.
We found out that the bright blue colour is created by the glaciers grinding rock into dust, this ‘rock flour’ then travels down into the lakes and when the sun shines brightly in the sky these particles give Lake Tekapo and the surrounding glacial lakes and canals their incredible colour.
The water looked so clear and inviting that Rich and I donned our swimmers and headed to the lake for a swim. I got no further than ankle deep before bailing out, it was freezing cold! Rich determined as ever not to give in continued on and dived in for a swim. I kept him in there a bit longer than he would have liked, rushing back to our bag to grab the camera to take a picture or two of him!
Lake Tekapo is also well known for being part of the largest dark sky reserve in the southern hemisphere, thanks to the almost light pollution free Mackenzie Basin. Home to the Mount John Observatory, this dark sky reserve is the best place to star gaze in New Zealand.
Given that Rich and I were being eaten alive by sand flies and mozzi’s, we didn’t spend a huge amount of time out star gazing, however we did take our chances for a few minutes and absorbed the millions of tiny flecks of light piercing through the night sky.
The longer we looked at the night sky, the more stars appeared as our eyes adjusted to the light. It was certainly beautiful and I was unable to take a picture that did it justice but we have a few blurry ones to remind us of this beautiful place.
Lambs on the loose 