Day 3 - Lake Tekapo to Mount Cook/Aoraki

Saturday 16th June 2012

Heading to the lakeshore at Tekapo from our campervan site

Woke up at a leisurely time again, this time to take in the glittering waters of the lake about 100 m away from our campsite. For our first country stopover, the sights and sounds of a real far-from-civilisation mountain retreat were pretty darn amazing. We took an early morning walk (after tea and a hot English brekkie by our resident native Brit) down to the lakeside. Lake Tekapo is a shimmering metallic aquamarine colour, apparently from the suspended minerals and mica in the water. Ringed by mountain ranges on most sides, it made an impressive backdrop. 

Lake Tekapo and the hapless fishers

We rummaged around the lakeshore, amongst frozen mud and an icy pebble beach, watching hapless ducks and a small fishing dinghy putt out into the still waters.

The Church of the Good Shepherd in Tekapo

After taking a while to get used to campsite kitchens and our first $2 hot shower (the nerve of the place! $40 to plug in our power cable overnight and we still had to pay for a hot shower in a freezing bathroom with soggy carpet), we headed into the township of Lake Tekapo.




Amongst a score of drunken English backpackers falling over themselves in the main park - this was 10am mind you - we caught glimpses of a charming old church hand built by one of the first European settlers to the area. The Church of the Good Shepherd. Apparently it was a bribe to the good lord considering the man who built it was a notorious sheep thief who came to the mountains looking for somewhere to hide his flock.

The long Tekapo canal running alongside the highway

Leaving Tekapo we drove past a series of salmon farms, on a long straight road that followed alongside a canal. It was quite surreal driving beside a turquoise strip of water along a raised embankment through a basin of yellow and brown wilderness. Convinced our NavWoman had led us down the wrong road considering also how devoid it was of other cars, we soldiered on and were greeted at the foot of the canal with  Lake Pukaki and a large hydroelectric station. They were sucking salmon and electricity out of this band of blue in the dirt - how novel!

Lake Pukaki viewpoint up to
Mt Cook (centre horizon)

We stopped at the foot of lake Pukaki for campervan-fresh afternoon tea. It seemed a longer lake, the same shimmering blue green, but with the highest peak in the land - Mt Cook at 3754m - framed perfectly at the lake head in the far distance. It was here that we decided to head up to Mt Cook township, driving alongside Lake Pukaki to its source in the Southern Alps. I also wanted to get a photo in front of Mt Cook similar to that one I had seen my grandmother in, when she used to live in New Zealand as a youngster.

On the drive again it was remarkable how few other cars were around on such a beautiful road. Past pine forests and shadowed patches of frost, past countless pebbly stream beds and undulating yellow hills, we drove towards the ever-growing snowy peaks. 

The road to Mt Cook, towering over the plains... Try find
this kind of vista anywhere in Australia!

The little chalet town of Mount Cook clung to the side of a foothill, just above a flat-bottomed glacial valley, steeply sloped on 3 sides by towering mountains. To the south gleamed Lake Pukaki in the distance. Short of petrol, we  filled up at the only petrol station around - that happened to be an unmanned, self serve pump. We hopped into the Information Centre, which along with a few hotel rooms and a YHA were about the bulk of the buildings in the town, where an enthusiastic young Kiwi girl waxed lyrical about the area and the local hikes.

After she had done about 8 fist pumps in an 8 minute period (with an accompanying "Yessss!!" which Ed became prone to repeating for the next few hours) we had talked ourselves into abandoning our earlier plan of trying to reach Wanaka, and decided to do some hikes and stay in the local unpowered Department of Conservation site further up in the mountains.

Little did we know th ramifications of this little change of heart. Let's just say that was to be the first and only time we chose to 'rough it' on our trip!

Our campsite with non functioning toilets and no
running water. Mt Sefton in the middle

The campsite had no running water or electricity at all, and the only toilet was an icy portaloo. Because of the surrounding mountains, rising around 2000m above the valley on all sides, sunset was about 3:30pm and sunrise ... Well I don't think it ever really came. We parked, had a tea and set off on our first hike. It took 5 minutes before we had complained vigorously and repeatedly to each other about the cold, and we were still around an hour from returning to base camp.

Mount Cook - 3754m

Have to say, the hike was worth it. We got to see a glacial lake up close (well, from the sheer edges of a cliff that hada been carved out of the mountainside itself by a long-melted glacier). Atop the mountains around us we could see the distinctive blue ice of glaciers in formation, and got to hear the unearthly cracking as they would break up and grind over the rock. The glacial lake had so many different hues of opalescent blue and green, and with nothing but national park around us it was deathly still and quiet. 

And cold. Oh so cold. 

Trying to take photos with gloves

By the time we returned to the campervan it was dark, real dark. We ate a quick dinner and since there was little we could afford to do without external power or running water, we made ready for bed at 7:45pm! Dressed in ski jackets, beanies, gloves and scarves until we got under 3 layers of blankets and quilt (and even then we only took off the ski jackets).

It was the beginning of a very long and painfully cold night out in the middle of the wilderness at the foot of the highest and coldest peaks in New Zealand...

Dinner jacket, beanie and scarf - check