New Zealand Day 9 Part 2 : The Beautiful Lake Tekapo

Day 9&10, 14-15 September 2011

The Woolshed Gallery in Akaroa distracted us a bit, we were carried away selecting what kind of wool products we wanted to buy to the extent that we forgot about the time and the fact that we had long way to go from Akaroa to Lake Tekapo.



The first thing we need to do once we get out of Akaroa was searching for petrol station, to prepare for the long journey. Our GPS took us far far away from civilisation, which we initially worried as to whether it shows us the right direction [history shows that that particular GPS has its mood, it took us God knows where the final night we were in Wellington]. Nonetheless, it was a good drive, the countryside was equally cool and beautiful.



We continued our journey south once we were done with the petrol matter. We decided to have a relaxing drive along the way. Mr D received a business call when we reached Lincoln, so he had to stop by the roadside to answer the call. I took that opportunity to wander around and was so glad he stopped very near to Lincoln University. It's photo time, some of my friends are the product of Lincoln University, so I purposely took photos of Lincoln University from different angles, with the intention to show it to them later on. See girls, this is how your university looks like these days.



The almost 4 hour journey between Akaroa to Lake Tekapo was a nice one, though most of the time we were going through the road in the middle of nowhere. South Island is big, but with only 1 million population, we can expect quite a quiet island along the way. We used Ashburton - Geraldine - Fairlie - Tekapo route.



It was almost 6pm by the time we reached Lake Tekapo. It was already near Maghrib time. The view is already different here, we can already see the snow capped mountain surrounding the lake. The view was simply breathtaking, with the slightly reddish sky as the background.



We checked in at Lakeview Tekapo, the last motel I booked, booked very near to departure. Reason being, the initial itinerary was to stay 2 nights in Christchurch and then to drive straight from Christchurch to Queenstown. But we later thought it will be too taxing to drive that far, so Lake Tekapo was the choice to break the journey. As the booking was done quite late, and we were left with not much choices around Lake Tekapo, so we settled with Lakeview Tekapo, which is the most expensive among all motels we stayed in. It costs NZD195 per night... I originally budgeted maximum of NZD150 per night for motel, so we practically burst our budget with this one.




We were satisfied with the motel though, it was very modern, with no key to pass through the main door, just pass code to be keyed in. The apartment was very spacious, the kitchenette was superbly furnished, the living room was comfortably set, it makes the stay very relaxing. One thing I like the most about this motel is the existence of auto sky window, right on top of our bed. This sky window is controlled using a remote, allowing us to do stargazing from our bed at night. That means we can even stare at the stars while lying on the bed!

One notable thing about Lake Tekapo is its clear sky, allowing stargazing activities to be done. There are even stargazing tours we can join at night, to the Mt John observatory or Cowan's Hill. Simply amazing! The streetlights around Lake Tekapo are of a low intensity just so it won't distract us from the amazing sky.



Once we were done with stargazing and stuffs, I prepared my 20 minutes meal, comprises of microwaved-rice, kapitan curry chicken, and some raw salad. It was so convenient and easy, just dump everything in the microwave and wallaa.. The next morning before we started our journey, it was time for buttered-bread, tomato and sausages to fill in our tummy.



It was freezing cold that next morning, it was 0 degree celcius when we went out of the house. But the Lake Tekapo was so inviting we didn't care about the freezing weather. One notable thing about Lake Tekapo is its outstanding turquoise blue color, which was created by the rock flour which was grind by glaciers into fine dust, and created the unique blue color when combined with sunlight.



Tekapo town centre is located just off the lake, so once we were done admiring the lake, we spent some times going around the small town. It was so small you don't need even an hour to wander around.



Despite its small size, we can actually get quite a number of things including souvenirs. There's also a supermarket called 4Square in the middle of the town, but when I looked at the various items sold, it was sold at a much higher price than what we can find in many other places. Even Whittakers chocolate was sold at NZD5.99, when it was sold at around NZD3.50 at Pak N Save and Countdown. That's kind of a huge margin to be tolerated.



It was raining that morning, so there's nothing much we can do anyway. It was near noon, but the temperature at that time was only 2 degree celcius. So we decided to continue our journey south, heading towards Queenstown next.

Next : Beautiful route Tekapo - Wanaka - Cardrona - Arrowtown - Queenstown