We had a bit of a sneaky sleep in this morning before heading down to a little cafe called Jack Rabbit to have some breakfast. It was looking like it was going to be a beautiful day today.
We decided to check out Lake Tekapo before heading out for the day so we wandered across the bridge and out to the church of the good shephard. The whole town is really beautiful here. The church as quite busy but it really is a beautiful place.
We then jumped in the car and started our drive to Mt Cook Nationa park. We pulled over at a lookout over Lake Pukaki. This is a huge Alpine lake which runs towards Mt Cook.
The road to Mt Cook national park is literally stunning. You are surrounded by snow cap mountains and the lake the whole way down. It is worth jus heading down this way to drive the road.
We did a quick stop into the information centre which has lots of information and displays about the Mt Cook area. It also has really stunning views of the mountains.
We arrived at the Hooker Track carpark and after dodging many many potholes we went to park but there were two alpine ducks that would not move. Anthony had to get out of the car to move them on. It was pretty amusing.
The Hooker Valley track was really really beautiful. However because of the snow everywhere the track was super icy and slippery. This meant we only walked to the first lookout as the stairs after that were literally iced over and looked super dangerous.
We went and grabbed a quick bite to eat and then headed our way back to Tekapo. We pulled in at Lake Pukaki at the salmon shop where you can order fresh alpine salmon. We grabbed some sashimi each grabbed some smoked salmon for dinner later. We took the sashimi out and sat looking ot at the lake. It was super delicious and a super beautiful view.
Later that night we went on a dark sky tour with the dark sky project. We were taken out in a bus to their little craters and given a journey through the stars. There were so many stars it was so beautiful. We were also showed some of the more maori and pacific islander things in the sky like Maui’s hook and the canoe. We got to look at different constellations through telescopes (the picture below is a nebular through the telescope) and we learnt how to always find south! It was a really good tour.
