21.2.08 5:30pm- Lake Tekapo III

The past few days in Lake Tekapo have been pretty cruisy, and I have even managed to get a bit of work done! It feels great to be able to unpack our bags and stay in one place for more than one or two nights. We have already gotten into a daily routine—go running first thing in the morning, do two hours of housekeeping, have lunch, read/work/check email, have dinner, play tennis (there are courts about 20m away, at the community centre next door), pick a big cupful of raspberries hanging on the bush in Michael’s garden, do a bit more work, then have supper (evening snack), and go to bed. Not a bad way to spend our days! In some ways, when I begin looking forward to going back to Canberra at the end of the month, I remember that there really is no home for Seth and me to return to when we get back. We don’t even have a mailing address (Seth’s superannuation forms got bounced back from Johns and they can’t be delivered). Tailor-Made-Tekapo Backpackers is our only home for now, which is pretty silly and a bit depressing.

Lake Tekapo

Chapel of the Good Shepherd, Lake Tekapo

Fresh raspberries, every day!

Today we mixed things up a bit by visiting the observatory on the top of Mt. John, which overlooks Lake Tekapo. Lake Tekapo offers some of the clearest sky in all of New Zealand, and at an elevation of 700m it is also the coldest region in New Zealand. The sky always seems cloudless and immaculate and at night the temperature drops very quickly. I believe the southern lights are visible here, so I will have to dig up information on when to look for them. The top of Mt. John gave a full 360 degree view of the electric blue lakes and desolate ranges (all brown save a few pine plantation). I still can’t help but wonder why it is so treeless…