Day 9 - Lake Tekapo

Today was meant to be a rest day with just a wee hike planned.  And here I am - feet up, sunburnt face and weary legs.  Our wee hike turned into a whopping 17kms and 24,000 steps and this is on the back of some pretty active days hence an essential nanna nap this afternoon. 😳

Before the hike even began Steve and I nipped down to the lake shore to take some quick pictures before the tourist onslaught (and I know we're tourists too, but because we're not driving a motor home or jumping off a tour bus we can pretend we're not 😉)

And last night we had our first sprinkle of rain.  It was in the early evening so didn't affect any plans and score - got a cool rainbow shot. It was actually a double one but the second was faint and didn't show up on the photo.

We started our hike around 12 noon and the photo below was about 300m from the official start by which time we'd already walked about 1.5km from the supermarket carpark.  Squids were not happy when they realise we could actually have parked at the start.  

And from this point it was up, up and more up - 2.4km worth and 460m of elevation. Oh yep - we weren't expecting it to be that high, steep and long and all might have been a bit sweaty and crotchety by the time we got to the top. Not that you can tell from our smiling faces below 😑 

Bottom right gives an idea of how high we climbed

And then on a bit further to a bunch of observatories and a cafe.  

Had a bit of a sit down before the kids announced they did NOT want to continue on the long way so it was adios amigo and we parted ways.

Top right sign showing the short and long way back

I think we made the right choice because we got to see this...

this...

and this...

😁