Lake Tekapo

When we arrived at Lake Tekapo we found a tiny village nestled on the brightest blue lake we had ever seen. We found it hard to believe that this was a compulsory stop on our Magic Bus tour until we realised that there were only three hostels in the town and Magic had purpose-built one especially to bring their bus load of tourists to. We were cross about this as we felt we'd been forced into giving them more money.



As it happened, we arrived so late in the day to cold, blustery weather that we weren't really feeling a hike up the mountains - the only free activity in the town, it seemed. Unless you wanted to pay over $100 to go star-gazing through a telescope, pay over $100 to go on a 'Lord of the Rings tour' (ie, walk through a few fields that featured in the film) there wasn't much left to do. Instead we opted to enjoy the lake while we still had daylight and walked around it into the village where we picked up a few bottles of wine for a cosy night in the hostel.


Facts:

The gorgeous, turquoise colour of lake is created by ‘rock flour’ which is suspended, fine rock particles in the glacial melt water.

The name Tekapo comes from the Maori meaning for 'Sleeping Mat' (Taka) and 'Night' (po)

The Little Church of the Good Shepherd was built in 1935 from Stone and Oak

Fact: The statue of a collie dog is a tribute to the sheep dogs which helped develop the Mackenzie Country. Jock Mackenzie was legendary because he used to run his stolen flocks in this uninhabited region around 1843 until he was caught. Following his capture other settlers realise how good the land was for grazing and thus the Mackenzie Country became inhabited.