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9th July -We drove to Tekapo which is apparently known for its stargazing. On the way we detoured to the clay cliffs. They are located on a farmers property and you pay $5 per car via an honour box at the gate. They were amazing and seemed out of place amongst the usual farmland or granite hills. Ali got his drone out and managed to get some great aerial photos. Rather than clay, it is more compressed gravel and sand which is soft enough for the rain to erode the area into high pinnacles and deep ravines.
We were only staying one night in Tekapo so booked a night tour to see the stars. This meant being taken up to a high peak to freeze our pointy bits and look though telescopes. We duly assemble at the appointed time only to be told there was too much cloud cover to see the stars and so got our refund. While there were walks etc, time didn’t allow anything much and the next morning it was raining. We visited the Church if the Good Shepherd which like the Wanaka tree is the most photographed thing/place in Tekapo. The church was built in the 1930,s to honour the resilience of the alpine sheep farmers who worked this area. After wading through the Chinese tourists I got my photo to show I’d been there. Most published pictures are taken at night to show the constellation of stars sweeping across the roof of the church. Not for us....too much cloud (also we took our photos during the day).
10th of July we were on the road again for a one night stay at the Mount Cook Village. There was steady rain all day so we did activities within the Hermitage Hotel. Given there was a museum in the hotel including a section on Sir Edmond Hillary, a movie theatre with planetarium, I got the impression that they have previous experienced with managing stir crazy tourist during times of inclement weather. It was fair to say we sucked the marrow out of the Hermitage hotel and contributed to paying the staffs salaries. The next day the weather had cleared a bit and so we did a couple of walks and had some photo opportunities (although Mount Cook was covered in cloud.
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