Mount Cook & Lake Tepako, South Island - Page 6
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We had a long drive from Te Anau to the town of Lake Tekapo. We stopped for about 3 hours in Queenstown at Deer Park and got to Lake Tekapo late in the day. We stayed in a cabin at Lake Tekapo and I remember that it quite cold and we went into town and got fish and chips wrapped in newspaper for our dinner. I guess the big cold lake, the high altitude and the glaciers around town kept it feeling cold.
Lake Tepaco is brilliant turquoise colored with beautiful mountain in the background. We have seen this before in the Canadian Rockies, where the silt ground from the mountains by the glaciers makes the water look turquoise.
Views from the road to Lake Tekapo. The water was beautiful, and the lakes were many miles long.
From Lake Tekapo, we drove to Mount Cook and to the foot of the Tasman Glacier. We did a lot of hiking down the valley floor where the glacier was 10,000 years ago. We saw beautiful mountains, valleys, lakes with ice and Mount Cook from a very close viewpoint.
We went across a swinging bridge that crossed over the ice melt. It was pretty high up and not too steady. Kendra
got scared but made it across.
The ice from the end of the Tasman Glacier broke off and floated in this lake. It was very cold and still and we had a good view of the mountains reflecting in the lake.
