New Zealand: Lake Tekapo, Mount Cook and Christchurch

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The drive up to lake Tekapo was incredibly straight. I felt as if I was only turning the wheel every 5 minutes. The town of Lake Tekapo is small and touristy. We had tried to stay here the previous night but everything was booked up. The lake itself was a very nice bright blue with snow capped mountains in the distance. We took the steep road up to the observatory which had even better views and very strong winds. The drive up to Mount Cook village was also surprisingly straight. We started to get views of Mount Cook itself. It was partially shrouded with cloud but it was moving so fast that it was possible to get clear views of the summit every so often. We drove up to the car park below the Tasman glacier and Lynne and I walked up onto the moraine. The views were great in a slightly bleak and desolate kind of way. The glacier itself was largely covered by a skin of rubble so you couldn't see much ice but the terminal lake was full of small ice bergs. Well worth the walk from the car park.