Day 3 - Rakaia Gorge to Lake Tekapo

A travelling day today for our next stop at Tekapo.

We left around 10 am with clearing skies so it looks good for the Dark Sky viewing at the Mt John observatory. We made good progress driving on those incredibly long and straight Canterbury roads. The only drama was hitting a Harrier Hawk at 90km when it failed to fly away from its road kill in time. Looking at the dash cam footage, it seems that it did survive and we saw the shadow of it flying away. Hopefully, just stunned. The dash cam footage of the strike is quite dramatic.

By midday it was time for a refueling stop at Fairlie and lunch at a nice cafe called Eat. On the way back to the van we browsed through a second hand/antique shop. We actually wanted to find an op-shop as we need a pot lid to fit one of our frying pans. No joy because it was more up-market than the usual op-shop but I did find the VCR section and got the complete fourth season of Stargate SG1 (6 discs) and 'The Girl that Played with Fire' for $4 each!

Then it was only a short 30 minute drive over Burkes Pass to Tekapo. Its quite dramatic when you finally get into the MacKenzie Country with the mountains in the distance and large flat areas of tussock. And no people anywhere.

We parked up at the NZMCA Park just short of town and walked into town (about 25 minutes) to check out the situation regarding the Summit Experience. I got the last spot for the 7:15 pm tour so that is all on for later tonight. I plan to ride my mountain bike into town rather than walking while Miriam chills out here.

After a nice Hazy Ale at the bar of the Dark Sky café we walked back for an early tea (green chicken curry). More updates will follow when I get back from the star gazing.