New Zealand - The Southern Alps - Lake Takepo

We've taken a detour from the east coast road and come inland to do some hiking in the Southern Alps. Our first stop, Lake Takepo, is so nice we've stayed an extra day! It's a glacial lake and is really turquoise so it looks a much darker colour than the sky, which is kind of cool (something to do with dust particles in the water). We're camped over-looking the lake and surrounded by mountains and once again are blown away by our setting. (I apologise if it's getting a bit boring hearing "it was really beautiful" over and over again, but it IS all really beautiful! I feel like I'm running out of ways to say that though. I hope Ben's pictures will be a bit better at showing you what I mean).

There's a tiny, pretty church on the lakeside and instead of having stain glass it has a huge clear window overlooking the lake. But Ben had something of a strop when he was trying to get a photo of it because bus-loads of Japanese tourists kept pulling up in front of him! The final picture was worth the wait though :0)



I'm pretty taken with the sheepdog stature nearby, which is a thank you to all the generations of working dogs who have aided the local famers in managing their land. Ooh and all the rabbits (a.k.a. "fluffy bunnies") we've seen playing everywhere (no doubt hated by the locals for eating all the vegetation and disturbing their precious flightless birds. I'm thinking of starting up a we-love-introduced-mammals-as-well-as-kiwis-It's-not-their-fault-you-brought-them-over-here club, but I'm not convinced there'll be many members!)

We hiked up the nearest mountain today and found little observatories scattered all around. The skies are so clear and free from light pollution here that the nearby university does lots of astronomy studies. Looking up when running to the loo, in the cold, during the night showed me why. The sky looks massive! And there's tonnes of stars, way more than you ever see from home. Obviously I don't know what any of them are, and can't maintain my concentration for long enough to learn any, but none-the-less I am capable of being impressed!



We had a big treat after our walk this afternoon and went to a brand new hot spring spa pool complex. It had three pools all at different temperatures and loungers to lie in the sun. It was proper luxury and Ben loved it too, mostly because for some reason it only cost us about three quid each :0) I could definitely get used to this sort of lifestyle.

I have a confession to make... the significant drop in temperature, especially in the evenings and mornings, coupled with my distinct lack of appropriate clothing (and the fact that we're in New Zealand and fashion is not a big thing over here!) has lead me, on several occasions, to be seen in public, sporting my favourite pink flip flops (or "jandals" as they call them here) teamed with big, brown, woolly, knee-high socks covered in llama patterns, from South America, which were a typically rubbish Christmas present from my brother (cheers Clump!).

Ben:
There are more photos here