Lake Tekapo
This morning we checked out of our accommodation in Queenstown and headed in the direction of Christchurch but with a stop at a place called Lake Tekapo for a helicopter ride to a glacier for a hike. The only problem is that the weather was not very good today! It was rainy and cloudy but because the weather changes so fast around here we continued with our plan and needed to check in with the tour company closer to the time.
Along the way we had a quick stop at the hydro station for some photos and pulled into a small town along the way for breakfast. We were looking for a place that served coffee and the first one we saw was a sushi cafe and with our group we were bound to stop there! I didn’t feel like sushi for breakfast so I just had a hot chocolate and we continued on to the helicopter tour office.
It was a bit of a drive, but we eventually got there and it was really cloudy and still raining a little bit. We went inside and the lady in the office said that we had to cancel today but we could reschedule for tomorrow. We got fitted for our boots and crampons (which are the spikes for the bottom of the boots) and signed the waiver so when we came back tomorrow we would be all prepared.
From there we headed into town for some lunch. We stopped at a pretty nice alpine lodge looking place and had a burger. There was a little fireplace and a great view of the mountains. After relaxing at this place for a while we went to the visitor center and looked around there for a bit and finally went over to the glacier lake for a little hike.
The hike was fairly short but my fitness level is pretty poor right now and climbing uphill for that long definitely puffed me out! The view from top was really nice though. You could just about see a cross section of the glacier on the edge of the lake. It was mostly a dirty brown color but you could see highlights of bright blue from the side. Because it was lightly raining I didn’t bring my camera or drone but I took some photos with my phone.
We continued driving for about an hour to our accommodation. The drive was pretty nice and we stopped along the way for some sunset photos. There was a pretty big group of people with cameras and tripods up on a ridge to take photos too!
By the time we got to the accommodation it was dark and it was a little challenging to find the office to check in, but we got there in the end. The accommodation was pretty cool, it was a pretty big house with four bedrooms, a hot tub out the back and a great view of the mountains! A few of us were very keen on making use of the tub and the guy in the office said it has been on for a while and should be nice and hot, ready to use! Before we do that though, we thought we better get some dinner. We all dumped our stuff and went into town.
We made a quick stop at a convenience store and I finally found the much hyped Limited Edition Fruju Tropical Snow ice cream! The only problem was that both the convenience store and the dinner places would not be open for long. If I bought one now I couldn’t really eat it right before dinner and if I wait it would be closed by the time we’re done, so we bought one and left it in the car while we had dinner thinking there was a chance that being so cold at night it would be ok.
We went to the highest rated restaurant in town which also happened to be Japanese. I ordered a pretty big meal! It was a big bento box that came with a side of tempura vegetables and miso soup.
We finished up with dinner and headed back to the house. On the way out there was a pretty big gift shop so we had a look around. I saw kiwi fruit chocolate and thought that could be interesting and Chris wanted a block as well, so Rob and I were joking that we should get five blocks because we would get a sixth one free as part of the their promotion. Chris wasn’t keen on the idea but we kept hounding him until we eventually walked off to pay for a single block. As soon as he got to the register, the cashier said “Did you know if you get five you get one free” and we all started laughing and Chris hesitantly bought some more chocolate. After getting ripped off with tourist chocolate we headed back to the hotel.
When we got back I checked that ice cream but it had completely melted even in the cold weather! This was probably obvious but we had to try! We ended up putting it in the freezer so we could try again later. While I was checking on that, Amy and Tom had already got into their bathers and were on the way to the hot tub, Rob and I joined in soon after! It was really cold outside so the walk between the house and tub was not very pleasant, especially on the way back but the tub was great! When we turned the lights off and let our eyes adjust, sitting there in a hot tub staring out at the mountains were really cool. They were a bit more visible here than at the onsen we went to Queenstown.
After soaking for a bit, Amy got out and got a glimpse of the stars in the nice, clear night sky. Just around the corner from our hotel was a famous church that is a popular spot with photographers because of the nearby lake and mountains and Amy was really keen on going so she managed to convince me to get out of the nice warm water and into the cold to go take photos.
We got our tripods and camera gear and drove over to the church. There was a massive group of photographers here with the same thought as us. Apart from a few people sitting at the base of the church and a pretty bright moon, the photos turned out ok, but we didn’t spend too long out there to make them perfect because it was pretty cold!
We got back to the house around 1AM and went to bed. We were only at this place for one night which was a bit of a shame, it seemed like a great place to spend some time.