Lake Tekapo

Today we arrived at Lake Tekapo, in the McKenzie country of the South Island. Travelling through the country makes you appreciate what a beautiful part of the Island this is. The snow on the southern alps looked stunning against the brown paddocks surrounding the mountains.

The weather down this part of the island has been surprisingly warm - compared to Murchison. It is nice to be able to spend some time in the sun.

I'm amazed at how brown the landscape is here - compared to our very green paddocks at home. Seeing this makes me realise how lucky we are to have lush grass available for our cows to eat. I feel for the farmers down this way that are struggling in the already hard farming conditions.

Tonight we visited the Mt John observatory. After a clear day with no cloud to be seen, by the time we arrived there tonight the cloud had covered the sky - so unfortunately we did not see one star! Just typical! However we were lucky enough to see the moon and Saturn through the telescope which was awesome, and then had a tour of the huge telescopes. It's a massive operation they have on the mountain.

I took this photo this afternoon down by the lake. The sky was perfect with the lovely blue lake and snow capped mountains.