Lake Tekapo

From Christchurch we headed back into the mountains to Lake Tekapo, a beautifully situated reservoir with turquoise water.

The tour took us southwest out of Christchurch to the Banks Peninsula, a quite mountainous peninsula, from where we had spectacular views of the bay landscape and Christchurch. From there it went less exciting through the flat and agricultural Canterbury region before the road SH 8 turned west into the mountains. The weather was even quite sunny, so that the lake eventually lay deep turquoise in front of us! What a sight. However, motorcycling was not the great pleasure again because of strong gusts of wind, on the high plateau shortly before Lake Tekapo we had such strong crosswinds that we were only driving 50. Luckily we were already shortly before our destination.

The campground was right on the lake, the view was great, especially from the BBQ area benches. The grills were ironically also set up so that you could look out over the lake while grilling. In the evening we took a walk to the town to see the chapel by the lake and the bronze statue of the German shepherd dog. Without German shepherd dogs, sheep farming would not be possible in New Zealand, hence this artwork. Anyway, it is supposed to be the most photographed dog in New Zealand, which seems credible considering the masses of tourists we met here.

The next morning we took a hike from the campground to Mt. John, from where you had a nice view of the lake. Of course, it was windy at the summit too...