Timeout in Tekapo

February 13th and 14th

Tailor Made Backpackers, Lake Tekapo

KM 2408.3

Distance: 0km

Elevation: N/A

Steps: N/A

Time: N/A

A couple of days downtime at Lake Tekapo has been useful for letting some bad weather pass, wash and dry gear, and fuel up on normal food. You know, beer, fries, katsu chicken, chocolate bars etc. You'll agree that it's a quite stunning location to spend some downtime!

In particular, on Saturday night unseasonal snow fell to 1000m, and on day 2 of the the next section we will get up to 1925m, the highest point on the entire TA. Since we do not have the gear for serious cold (much below freezing), nor for snow or ice walking, we decided that, discretion being the better part of valour, we'd check the weather forecast.

On Sunday the temperature was in the low single digits and rainy (or snowy above 1000m). Today the max temperature was 24C and as you can see above a stunning blue sky day! The forecast temperature for tomorrow is 28C. What's going on, Canterbury?! With these temperatures the snow will likely melt by the time we get to the mountain tops.

So we've been tourists again, visiting the iconic Church of the Good Shepherd,

The Dark Sky Project,

And a statue of a Very Good Boy.

The next section will take us most of the next four days, then a one night stay in Geraldine, then back on the trail for about four days. So we're unlikely to be posting any blogs in this time.

But we're approximately half way up the South Island, and speeding up. Yesterday when we were doing the daily Stuff website quiz we came across the question below, which we had a chuckle at, and I'm sure you will too in the context of our adventure.

P.S. We were unaffected by Cyclone Dovi, we were just far enough south. However, many TA walkers further north had to find shelter in towns until the weather passed. There are some reports coming through about significant track damage in the upper South Island and central North Island.