Stargazing in Tekapo

The small village of Tekapo (300 inhabitants) is located just one lake away from Lake Pukaki, on Lake Tekapo. This is also a glacier lake and therefore has the same beautiful turquoise color.

In Tekapo itself, there is not much to do, a few restaurants and cafes. The biggest highlight is probably the 'Church of the good Shepherd', which provides a popular photo opportunity in the picturesque landscape. Built in 1935, it is already one of the old buildings in New Zealand. Right next to it, a dog statue reminds us of the time of the first settlers in the region, who would not have survived without their faithful shepherd dogs. This statue has even made it into the top lists of travel guides...
The town is surrounded by a network of smaller hiking trails. The most important one leads to Mt John (1031m), on top of which the observatory is located.

Tekapo is located in the middle of a 'Dark Sky Reserve' and prides itself on having some of the clearest, darkest, and most spectacular nights in the world. Light pollution is very low here and the Southern Lights are regularly seen (unfortunately not when I was there).

Of course, tourism shamelessly takes advantage of this and numerous companies offer stargazing tours. If you want the ultimate experience, book the combination of stargazing and a visit to the hot pools, so you can continue to observe the night sky while indulging in the warm water. Who can resist that? I certainly couldn't and booked exactly that tour.

But before that, I wanted to enjoy the view from Mt John in daylight. My legs heavily complained about the upcoming altitude, but the view was magnificent. You could see all the way to the Alps (the New Zealand ones) and on the other side, there was this beautiful glacier lake. By the way, the turquoise blue is created by the bottom of the lake: the glaciers have finely ground the stones at the bottom of the lake and when the sunlight shines on the lake, it creates this amazing reflection.

The longer the day, the worse the weather, and it started raining in the early afternoon. All the weather forecasts promised good weather...
A little depressed, I retreated to my room. Out of sheer frustration, I even went to a cafe and treated myself to a delicious mochaccino.

The stargazing tours offered by the company I booked with also take place in bad weather. Instead of a real sky, you can experience all the constellations virtually - indoors, of course.
In the evening, the sky actually cleared up a bit, so we could discover a few stars and constellations. But then the additional challenge was that we had almost a full moon.
Our guides tried their best to show us as much as possible through the telescope and were able to convey some really cool facts to us before they finally gave up and offered us the virtual tour instead.

I have to say that this virtual experience was almost better than looking through any telescope. Somehow it was fun to wear those glasses and it was really impressive to see the differences in size of the stars and galaxies.

But to be honest, the best thing about the evening was the hot pool. It had these cool hammocks in which you could lie in the water. So you could look up at the sky without getting a stiff neck and at the same time float in the warm water.

Our tour ended one hour after midnight and I was exhausted. For some stupid reason, however, I couldn't fall asleep for a long time, so I woke up the next morning very tired and in a very bad mood. But the day is basically just a long bus ride...