After our first week in the South Island and following the coast from Picton to Christchurch, our next steps led to the heart of the Southern Alps. Our base for several days was to be a small town called Tekapo, lying at the shores of the lake with the same name. Our plan was to explore the surrounding region, including the Aoraki Mt Cook National Park closeby, with the highest mountain in the country. The following paragraphs will take you there with us. Hopefully you will fall in love with this picture perfect country as we did!
- Golden and blue Tekapo
- Our trip to Aoraki Mount Cook National Park
- How to get around
- Where did we stay
Golden and blue Tekapo
We’d bet you already saw this lake somewhere – unbelievably blue water, snow-capped mountains behind it and a plenty of beautiful pink and violet lupine flowers. It rings a bell, right? Well, it looked exactly like in the pictures, but unfortunately there weren’t that many lupines this time of the year (like… three, in total?). However, we were treated to some amazing warm autumn colors instead, which wasn’t a bad deal after all.
This place is a great base for different active outdoor activities like hiking and cycling, as well as lazy relaxing and lake gazing. Moreover, it’s supposed to be one of the top places in the world to observe the night sky in the Southern hemisphere. Thus we spent our time here doing the following:
Enjoying the lake
We think it does not need any further comments on how beautiful this place is. Have a look at some photos we took during our daily walks at the lakeside.
Climbing Mount John
Mt John is the hill overlooking Tekapo. To go to the top and complete the Mount John Summit Circuit Track is an easy 1.5h hike up and down through a forest. This hill offers fantastic panoramic views of the surrounding mountains, lakes and Mackenzie Basin flats. We got there just before the start of the golden hour and watched the sunset with a few other travelers, who were waiting for this glorious time of the day at the hilltop even before we came.
Witnessing at least one wedding
At Lake Tekapo, there is a small picturesque Church of the Good Shepherd you can visit. And as we learned, it’s apparently a super popular wedding destination especially among foreigners. Well, it really looks very romantic and in combination with this beautiful surrounding we weren’t surprised people wanted to tie the knot here. We were also very picky about the aesthetic qualities of our wedding spot back in the days!
We visited this tiny church twice, first time seeing a Japanese wedding transpire, so we just stood at a distance and observed. The bride even smiled at us :) One unpleasant thing about getting married at a (locally) famous place like this – the crowds of other foreign tourists with zero social consciousness disregarding the need for privacy of the newlyweds and their guests and unscrupulously jumping to their wedding photos. We hate that, really.
Our second attempt to visit the church was on an early morning before our departure. There is a small window with a view of the lake and the mountains instead of a traditional altar. Brilliant idea!
Exploring the town
Tekapo is really tiny so the word “explore” may be too strong here. But anyways, we just wanted to see what’s here. Mia did read somewhere that there were alpaca farms and she really wanted to go have a petting spree with these fluffy cuties.
Relaxing in the thermal baths
In addition to various active relaxation options there are also hot springs. They have several hot pools and some spa facilities. We visited the Tekapo Springs in the evening. The combination: hot water + stargazing was excellent. We decided not to splurge on the add-on of “guided stargazing while laying in the hot pool”. During the day hours, when you can see all this fairy tale scenery, it must be amazing, too. And in the winter, there should be a snow park as well!
Observing the night sky
As we mentioned, Tekapo is one of the best places on Earth to see the night sky of the Southern Hemisphere. Mt John Observatory, belonging to the University of Canterbury and sitting at the peak of the hill Mount John, is performing the research in this area and also offering the visitors several stargazing experiences. It is supposed to be really cool, so we don’t really know why we didn’t go. Maybe they didn’t have free spots or something. Anyhow, if you are in Tekapo, don’t miss it :)
We had our own personal stargazing experience instead – we went for a night walk not far from our hostel and looked up. It was just – wow – clear sky and so many stars and milky way and…and everything! And the Southern Cross (Mia’s favorite constellation – the only one she can recognize with ease) was so huge! It’s a shame we weren’t better equipped for some good night sky shots and cannot show our own pictures. I guess they wouldn’t be able to convey how breathtaking it all was anyway.
Our trip to Aoraki Mount Cook National Park
Mt Cook or Aoraki is the highest mountain in New Zealand (3724m, or almost exactly 40x the height of the Statue of Liberty, for our American friends). The national park is quite close to Tekapo, so it’s easy to do a day trip and hike round this giant. Our original intention was to do the famous Hooker valley track. However, as we learned in the Visitor Center of the national park in Aoraki Mount Cook village, the track had been damaged by floods and hence we had to find another option.
Walking to Kea Point
To warm up, we went first to Kea Point. It offers stunning views of Mount Sefton, The Footstool, Hooker valley, Mueller Glacier lake and Aoraki Mount Cook.
Climbing to Sealy Tarns
After Kea Point, we thought it could be a good idea to walk some 2200 stairs (yes, stairs) up to the freshwater lakes of Sealy Tarns to have an even better view of the Hooker valley and the surrounding peaks. Well, it wasn’t fun at all – most of the hike it looked like there won’t be any views because of a thick fog, so the whole ordeal seemed like a pointless and depressing blindfolded physical effort. Luckily, the fog cleared near the summit and we were rewarded with a few epic panoramas. Thus, even if the following day we could not walk properly, this climb was well worth the effort.
Relaxing at Lake Pukaki
On the way between Tekapo and Aoraki Mount Cook National Park, there is Lake Pukaki, one more big and beautifully blue glacier lake in this region. It looked so attractive with the mountain group behind, including Mr Mount Cook, that we had to stop for a while.
How to get around
From Christchurch, we took our favorite InterCity bus again and after a picturesque 4ish hours long ride we arrived in a small town of Tekapo. The bus departs from Christchurch in the morning and arrives at Tekapo around noon, further continuing to Queenstown. The tickets can be booked at their web page beforehand and paid for either in cash or by flexi pass hours.
As for the transportation from Tekapo to the Aoraki Mount Cook National Park we picked a local company connecting Aoraki Mount Cook Village with Tekapo and Twizel. The journey was around 90 minutes one way and it was super beautiful, so we didn’t mind doing this as a day trip with a return back to Tekapo in the evening. Maybe it would’ve been slightly more flexible and convenient if we just rent a car, but for people unwilling to drive, like the two of us, this alternative wasn’t bad at all.
Where did we stay
Since we usually book our accommodation less than a day before arriving at a new destination and it has always worked up until now, we didn’t think anything else about our approach this time. However, there was New Zealand’s national holiday and apparently this stunning lake is a favorite vacation spot for the locals. Thus, there was nothing free. Mia was already quite desperate, but then we got a hint that there is a brand new YHA Tekapo hostel right at the lake that might have some free beds. We went, we talked, and we claimed two beds :)
We were so happy that we’ve got our place to sleep for the next three nights and honestly, we just probably won big time with this accommodation. Everything was super new, perfectly equipped and the kitchen and common area had huge windows with the best lake view ever. That’s the perk of sleeping in a hostel which had opened a week before!
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