22 March 2025
After a morning of hiking at Mount Cook National Park, we drove about 100 km to Lake Tekapo. The small township is located at the southern end of the lake of the same name. Lake Tekapo is known for attractions such as The Church of the Good Shepherd and is an excellent destination for stargazing since it is in the middle of Aoraki Mackenzie International Dark Sky reserve.
Our drive from Mount Cook to Lake Tekapo
The journey by car from Mount Cook National Park to Lake Tekapo would take approximately an hour and a half, offering numerous scenic viewpoints along the way.
We had stopped by many viewpoints by the shore of Lake Pukaki on our way to Mount Cook a few days earlier. So we only made a stop at Mt Cook Alpine Salmon Shop located on the southern shore of the lake. The Lake Pukaki Visitor Center is also located here.
Mt Cook Alpine Salmon Shop sells locally farmed freshwater Chinook salmon products. This is a good place to enjoy salmon sashimi while witnessing the turquoise-colored water of Lake Pukaki and the majestic peaks of Mount Cook and Mount Tasman.
We also made a quick stop at the Lake Pukaki Viewpoint (Google Map location here) before continuing our drive to Lake Tekapo. The view is almost similar to those at the Mt Cook Alpine Salmon Shop.
Dinner at Lake Tekapo
It was about 4.30 PM when we checked into our One Bedroom apartment at Lake Tekapo. The apartment, known as Stellar Apartment, is located on high ground and is a few minutes drive to the lake.
For dinner, we did some research on places to eat and decided to buy fish and chips from a highly raved food truck known as The Better Batter. This food truck is parked regularly by the shore of Lake Tekapo. Google Maps location here.
Our plan was to picnic by the lake but there were too few benches and all were occupied. So we went back to the apartment to enjoy our food.
The crispy squid was especially well seasoned and perfectly cooked. The deep fried, battered fish had crispy and light crust with moist, perfectly cooked fish inside. The coleslaw with dressing included as a side dish is good too. This food truck deserves the highly raved reviews.
The Church of the Good Shepherd
The sun sets about 7.30 PM in Lake Tekapo and we made it to The Church of the Good Shepherd just before sunset. Evening is the best time to go for a walk by the lake.
The Church of the Good Shepherd is a popular tourist attraction. It was built in 1935 as a memorial church to commemorate the early settlers. It is one of the most photographed buildings in the country. I remember enjoying the view of the lake and mountains from the big glass window behind the altar when we visited in 2004. This time, the church was closed. It is only opened during church service.
The church was not opened to tourists.
The grounds of the church are opened to the public and there is a large field behind where lupins are known to grow. We came at the wrong season for lupins and there were only a few in bloom. The lupin season in Lake Tekapo typically runs from mid-November to early January, with the peak bloom often occurring in late November and December.
The Sheepdog Memorial
A few hundred meters from The Church of Good Shepherd is a monument celebrating another shepherd. I had seen sheepdogs in action before and they are amazingly intelligent and effective in rounding up and herding sheep.
As a dog lover and owner of 2 dogs, I think this is a beautiful and meaningful statue to recognise man’s best friend.
We then drove to Four Square Tekapo hoping to buy some grocery but the store closed at 8 PM.
We killed some time at the nearby playground. The Tekapo playground is a spacious and popular spot for kids (and adults too!). The playground features a giant slide, swings, and a flying fox that children love.
Stargazing at Lake Tekapo
Lake Tekapo is renowned for its exceptional stargazing opportunities, being part of the Aoraki Mackenzie International Dark Sky Reserve. There are many stargazing tour operators in Lake Tekapo with various offerings. These tours often involve the use of telescopes, expert commentary on constellations and celestial objects. One even combines stargazing with hot pools at Tekapo Springs.
The Dark Sky Project offers various stargazing experiences including stargazing at Mount John Observatory and Cowan's Private Observatory.
I prefer a smaller and more personalised experience so I booked a stargazing tour with Astro Tekapo a few days earlier. This is a small group tour with a maximum of 10 participants.
The best condition for stargazing would a clear sky and no moon. Moonrise on this night was about 11.30 PM and would not affect our tour which starts at 9 PM.
I had noticed that the sky above Lake Tekapo was cloudy and was concerned that the conditions may not be suitable for stargazing and the tour may have to be cancelled. I contacted our guide a few hours before the tour and he told us to proceed to the meeting place for the tour if we do not hear from him by 8.30 PM
8.30 PM came and we proceeded to the meeting place as directed. Our guide, named Sang, was waiting for us. There were a few other groups in our tour. We were in luck as the sky above us was mostly clear during our 90 minutes tour.
We were each provided with red light torch to help lit the way safely to the middle of a really dark field. From there, we could see plenty of tiny stars and the Milky Way with our naked eyes.
We even spotted some “stars” moving in a straight trajectory. These are satellites orbiting the earth at high altitude and lit by sunlight even though the sun had already gone below the horizon.There were two telescopes deployed. The primary telescoped used by Astro Tekapo is the Celestron CPC Deluxe 925 HD which has a 9.25” aperture and HD optics with a computerized mount and integrated GPS. The second instrument is a state-of-the-art Unistellar eVscope 2 smart telescope which allowed us to look even deeper into space, revealing space clouds and distant galaxies in magnificent colours and incredibly fine detail.
We took turns to peek into the 2 telescopes provided to see various nebulas, star clusters, binary stars etc.
One of the stars we viewed in the telescope was Alpha Centauri, the nearest star system outside the sun. It is 4.4 light-years away. With the naked eye, this star appeared as a bright star near the Southern Cross constellation. Viewed with the telescope, I saw a pair of stars known as binary stars. In actual fact, Alpha Centauri is a triple star system. There is a much smaller star (not visible in the telescope) revolving round the binary star.
One of the telescopes has a photographic function to track and capture long exposure photos of the heavenly objects. I requested Sang to send me a few photos of what we saw that night and it was nice of him to send them to me via email after the tour.
We were advised to dress warmly for the tour and it was cold! Thankfully, we brought our down jackets.
Chairs, blankets and hot chocolate were provided for us to sit and gaze at the night sky. Using a laser pointer, Sang introduced the various constellations like Orion, Canis Major and Southern Cross to us.
Sang even explained a little on how to use the stars for navigation. Most people know that ancient sea-farers had used Polaris, also known as the North Star, as a reliable marker for finding north. This star is positioned very close to the Earth's north celestial pole and it appears nearly stationary in the sky while other stars seem to rotate around it.
Since we were in the Southern Hemisphere, we could not see the North Star Polaris. Sang explained how to use the Southern Cross constellation to locate where the imaginary location of the “South-Star” (and hence south) would be located.
Southern Cross is a small, distinct constellation made up of four bright stars, with 2 bright stars Alpha and Beta Centauri, located next to it.
For those interested, here is the method.
Find the two pointer stars, Alpha and Beta Centauri near the Southern Cross Constellation. Draw an imaginary line between them. Draw another imaginary line from the top star (Gacrux) to the bottom star (Acrux) of the Southern Cross. The intersection of these two lines points to the south celestial pole, and looking down from that point will indicate south.
The best part of the tour is when Sang took a photo of each group of tour participants with the night sky in the background.
After our tour, we went back to the Church of Good Shepherd. We had hoped to snap some photos of the church with the starry night sky above. There were just too many like-minded people that night. It was just impossible to snap a good, long exposure photo without someone shining a light at the building or walking into our shot. We gave up after a while and just enjoyed views of the night sky from the lakeside.
Star gazing on a clear night is a must-do activity when visiting Lake Tekapo.
No comments:
Post a Comment