Star Struck

As our final destination in the South Island was Te Anau, where we would go kayaking in the Milford sound before settling into Queenstown for the winter, after our lunch and quick look around Christchurch we continued our journey southwest. Since we knew driving all the way to Te Anau would be to much for the day, we decided to make a stop at the picture perfect Lake Tekapo so we would have a full next day to experience the drive into Fiordland on the southern west coast.

While we were in Wellington, we picked up a free lonely planet for the South Island. Since we have used the shit out of our lonely planet guides gifted to us for our journey, we knew this would be a good edition since we really found a lot of use in the lonely planet north island guide for our road trips and many side stops. When we first looked through our found book with FREE written over the cover, we found a highlighted section, Lake Tekapo. Of course, that first struck our eye and drew our attention to the lake. Lucky for us, it was right on our path, so we stopped. We first drove in to the town that consisted of about a block of restaurants, stores and an information center. We first stopped in the information center to find a campsite, was told of a $5 campsite down the road along with the knowledge that LakeTekapo is known for its star gazing and has one of the clearest sky's in New Zealand. Sweet as.

We then stopped at the little grocery store for some food, found our campsite, and made our home. Pulled out our camp chairs, took in the views of the new South Island scenery filled with tall jagged mountains surrounding the lake, some starting to fill with snow, made yummy pasta, and as the sun went down, started to realize it was going to be a cold cold night.

Since this was really the first really cold air we have felt since arriving in New Zealand, we pulled out all our real winter gear buried in the bottom of our containers. Thick wool socks, hats, large jackets hoping it would keep us warm as the night would get dark and the must see stars would come out. And holy moly did they. It was only about 7:30 as the sun set and the night and stars reached us. I have been continually amazed by the stars here is New Zealand, yet here in lake Tekapo, I was litterally star struck like I never have been before. As Liz and I sat in our chairs, bundled up, necks tilted back, we stared in awe. Watched shooting stars fly by and take in the sight of the star filled sky, including the Milky Way. We could not believe it, you can actually see the Milky Way. A cloudy band of stars reaching long and tall across the sky like nothing our eyes have ever witnessed or could believe they could see in the plain night sky.Unbelievable.

Cold to our core at this point, we crawled into the van and tried to get warm. Tried and tried and tried, but never succeeded. It was a cold rough night. Shivering with numb toes and hands trying to stay curled up recycling body heat as the night continued. Needless to say, there was not much sleep that night but as the us came up, we crawled out of the cold to feel the sun rays on our skin and bodies, slowly but surely getting its feeling back. We knew then on, as we just moved more south, quickly fast forwarding into winter weather, nights of sleeping in our van would have to be put at a halt for the cold, winter months here in New Zealand.

Once we got our feeling back, enjoyed coffee and peanut buter and jelly toast, we packed in our van and headed for Te Anau and a hostel.