Bright blue as the sky

During my horse riding trip in Cardrona I spoke to a girl from Wales and I asked her if it is worth it to go to Lake Tekapo, because the water in Queenstown is already pretty blue. She replied with 'yes, it is so bright that it will almost hurt your eyes'. I wasn't quite sure to believe her, but my curiosity was leading me the way. On my 3 hour car trip to Lake Tekapo I was pretty tired at the end of it (taking into account I had the interview with the Kiwi Birdlife Park that same day early in the morning) but then something caught my eye while I was driving.. wow that IS bright blue water! And the weather wasn't even that good that day but it looked so bright anyway! 

But how is it possible that it is so bright blue, you're asking? Well it has this beautiful turquoise blue as a product of the surrounding glaciers. The glaciers in the headwaters of Lake Tekapo grind rocks into a fine dust on their journey down towards the lake. The resulting particulate, called “rock flour,” is suspended in the water and causes the magnificent turquoise. Pretty awesome, right? :) 

This is also a great opportunity to capture some beautiful photos, like all of the photos on my blog are being taken by myself. Except for the ones I am on of course, every now and then I ask someone to take a picture of me to look at for later as these memories are pretty special to me. When I just started this whole journey I was quite nervous, obviously, because everything is new and you never know how it all will work out but so far this journey has been so amazing for me. There is something about travelling that makes you feel more self-conscious and it gives you the confidence that you can handle it all by yourself :)

The next day the weather was good, it was sunny and it was warm and sun + warmth equals one happy Dani haha! I walked over to the Mount John track and it said on the sign that it would take me more or less an hour to get to the top of that mountain. It was pretty tough especially as my breathing sounded more like the panting of a dog cause of my hayfever, but I made it to the top within the hour so all good. When I got to the top I saw the beautiful mountains surrounding Mt. John with the white coloured snow on top of it, a beautiful sight to see, so I sat down and had a lovely afternoon tea (lunch). Also the view on Lake Tekapo was stunning from up there. That is what I love about this country, all these mountains you can go hiking on, it makes you feel fit with all the exercising and the fresh air swirling around the mountains. And guess what.. I can actually say I have been swimming in Lake Tekapo even though the water was freezing cold, that is because the water comes from the mountains, so no surprise there right? ;) But I just dove in and came back out RIGHT away and cuddled up with my beach towel haha, yes.. I did it!

On my last day I knew I had a long ride back, like 5 hours from Lake Tekapo back to the family. But I couldn't resist the mountain-beauty called Mt. Cook. So that would take me even more or less 2 hours more + the resting in between makes it approximately 8 hours! But yeah like I said I couldn't resist it. At the beginning of the road to Mt Cook were 2 travellers hitchhiking, they wanted a ride. And I decided to take them with me as I have my moments of having a good heart haha! No to be honest, I said to them as well.. it's nice to talk to some other people for a change rather than talking to myself all the time 😅 They both travelled through Australia, the boy comes from France and the girl from Japan and they met eachother there, such a sweet lovestory if you would ask me well.. I think they were an item I'm not quite sure cause I didn't ask them now that I think of it 😂

I didn't really do my research on Mt Cook so the guy asked me how I was going up to see the glacier and I basically had no answer haha.. because the only way to get up there was either going by helicopter or do a hiking track but that would take ages and is more for advanced people like.. not me! But there are some walking tracks near Mt Cook and one of them was called the Kea track, so I was enthusiastic right away cause I would see a Kea today in the wild, I was sure of it. Especially after asking 2 people that did that track the day before and said to me they saw 2 Keas and 2 others they had been speaking to even said they had seen 8 Keas! So with a fast pace of walking (or maybe it was a slow pace of running🤔) I started the kea track. I could see the glacier coming closer and closer as I walked further and the more steps I took the more enthusiastic I got. But you might be able to guess it already.. I was nearly there, at the end of the track, I think you could've seen the glistening in my eye of excitement but when I got there: NOT ONE SINGLE KEA 😢 I must say I was a little disappointed as being a wildlife enthusiast, but the view made up for it almost completely, almost so not completely.. just saying 😂

And yet another time I asked someone to take a picture of me, so I stood in front of the glacier.. he took the picture and I thanked him and wanted to walk back as I was a little bit in a hurry cause of the lack of time.. but then he asked me 'don't you want a picture of you standing in front of Mt Cook as well?' Haha 'uhmm yes please' 🙈 Would've been pretty silly to only have a picture of yourself standing in front of 'a glacier' instead of Mt Cook! 

In a very fast pace I walked back to my car, stepped in, put some music on, started the engine and 'off I go' I thought but then I had a rest that took me way longer than I was planning on.. but that's for another time! 😊