Dunedin to Lake Tekapo

A decent little drive today so we get cracking early.

We stop at Signal Hill lookout for a final view before hitting the road and saying bye to Dunedin.

Quick coffee and muffin stop before clocking up some KMs.

First stop are the Moeraki Boulders; a strange geological phenomenon resulting in giant balls of rock scattered over the beach. Very eerie, very cool.

We stop at a fairly large town Oamaru for Subway before making our way inland again. It's not long before the hills start appearing, then giving way to mountains.

The sun is out despite the terrible forecast  and we're all warm.

Its nice to see snow on the mountains again. We're getting close to Lake Tekapo. The landscape becomes fairly barren. Large bodies of bright blue water start appearing.

We roll into town with a few hours of sunlight remaining. It's now or never if Jeff wants to "do a swim in NZ", so we head straight for the water; about a 2 minute walk.

The "beach" is very rocky and not very inviting. The wind is cold and blowing strong. Jeff is having second thoughts. But the shirt is off now. He hobbles down to the water. Each step could be his last. Manages to finally get his head under for 0.2 seconds and the box is ticked.

Such an amazing time of day with an incredible backdrop. Time for some photos!

We head back to the cabin and start thinking about food. "Anywhere but the Chinese place" is the recommendation from the manager.

One of the main attractions at Lake Tekapo is the stargazing tours. But we're looking at the sky and seeing patchy clouds roll in. We decide its probably not going to be worth it and that we can do some stargazing ourselves later.

We takeaway some food from the Thai/Japanese restaurant. It's does the job.

Time for some Canasta revenge. Jeff and Courts manage to win (with a lot of help and collusion!)

We step out into the cold and get our fill of stars. Not the best night for it, so I think we made the right call. Off to bed ready for our last driving day tomorrow.