After our visit with the O’Sullivans on Sunday afternoon, we loaded up and made the drive to Lake Tekapo, our next stop for the night. We specifically planned this stop on Sunday since there were no paid admission activities and it is the best place in NZ to see the Southern Lights and the entire Milky Way.

The children slept the entire drive and were still asleep when we arrived, so we pulled off to the side of the road and Brandon and I took a little nap ourselves.

As soon as everyone awoke, we made our way down to the foot bridge across Lake Tekapo and walked around. The fresh air felt so nice and we were in awe at the color of the water! Look at that turquoise!

^Our snack was a bag of chips and granola bars.

The Church of The Good Shephard was right there on the edge of the lake. That church was built to honor the pioneers who settled that area. If you google The Church of The Good Shephard, you’ll see some pretty amazing photos with the night stars as a backdrop such as this one:

But as luck would have it, the afternoon and evening were rainy and the thick cloud cover made it impossible to see any of the stars that night. We were pretty bummed, but alas, we made do and still enjoyed ourselves.

Our experience looked more like this:

After our walk, we drove a few minutes to stay at the Lake Tekapo Motels & Holiday Park. The setting was gorgeous. From our front porch of the cabin you could see the lake and huge pine trees. Brandon made us spaghetti dinner in the communal kitchen that we ended up eating on the porch due to the rain. Staying here reminded me of when I was a girl and my family would travel across the country and stay in numerous state parks. I can see now why my Dad wanted to stay in beautiful, natural campgrounds over commercial RV parks.

Blake and Evelyn loved getting to each sleep on a top bunk bed and although it took everyone a bit to fall asleep, we enjoyed a cozy night all together in this one-room cabin.