Tues 24th Feb: Lake Tekapo

Its dark wet and gloomy this morning. Not very promising for a trip into the mountains. I get the 8.30am bus to Lake Tekapo. It continues to rain for the next 2 hrs as the bus crosses the flat Cantebury plains. The amount of rain in NZ is starting to bug me. At least the driver helps to lift the gloom. A lot of the drivers on the Intercity buses give running commentaries on the towns and places of interest along the route. This driver this morning is qite humerous as he delivers his lines. The heavy cloud sits low over the wide plains. They are so low you feel as though if you reached up you could touch them. Thank God for the drivers anecdotes. With all the gloom I'm beginning to feel underwhelmed by NZ. The people are loverly, its very pretty and its a great sporting nation but it all feels too familiar. It doesn't feel like an adventure. I put this down to the days of bad weather and the fact that I've just been to Tonga.

Things begin to look up on the weather front as the driver launches into a story about an Irish sheep rustler. The rain stops and the clouds begin to lift. The sheep rustler was caught and imprisoned before escaping three times. He is eventually released for good behaviour and moves to Australia. The plains have been left behind and the bus has climbed through some wild hill country. Soon Lake Tekapo comes into view. We travel around the lake shore to the tiny settlement at the southern tip of the lake. It consists of a small cluster of shops and cafes huddled around a petrol station. These serve the few holiday parks, motel and hostel in the vicinity. The hostel lies a short distance from the shops close to the lakeshore. I checked in. By now the clouds were breaking up and blue skies began to appear. I prepared some food, got changed quickly and headed out to hike around the lake while the weather was good.

Lake Tekapo is a glacial lake, fed by one of the glaciers coming out of the mountains which stand on the far shore. Under a bright sky the glacial waters turn a beautiful turquoise blue and are very reminiscent of some of the glacial lakes in Argentina. I spent three hours in the hills overlooking Tekapo and got back to he hostel around 5pm. Earlier the hostel had appeared empty. Now it was full. I was in a mixed 6-bed dorm sharing with a group of Japanese bikers. I usually dread sharing with a group who are travelling together as it teds to be a lot noiser than if you are sharing with solo travelers. Thankfully this group were quiet enough.