Monday, March 13th we left Lake Tekapo and drove towards Mt. Cook. On the way, we saw a GINORMOUS lake that went on forever. We found out later it is called Lake Pukaki. We left Oliver in the car and took Blake and Evelyn out for a few minutes to look at it. Blake and Brandon climbed down all those rocks while I took Evelyn back to the car because it was pretty cold. *The following photos don’t even do justice of what we saw! I guess some things are just better remembered in the mind than through a lens.

When he got back, he showed me a picture on his phone of the amazing clear water and immediately I had to climb down to see the water for myself.

^Such beautiful, clear water!

We had planned to hike to see Mt. Cook, the highest peak in NZ, but yet again the rain got in the way. Actually, by the time we got to the Mt. Cook National Park, the rain had stopped, but the clouds were so thick and low that we couldn’t see any of the peaks. We decided to bag that hike and do one to the Tasman Glacier Overlook.

On the way up, we saw the “Blue Lakes” which used to be blue from the glacier, but since the glacier water no longer flows into the lakes, they have turned green due to algae.

You can see the very edge of Lake Pukaki in the background and the road that led us to the trail head.

Our view from the top was this: the Tasman Lake and you can see the Tasman Glacier clear in the back. It’s the tiny white wedge 1/4 way up on the picture.  I’m sure the view would have been even more incredible without those clouds! Blake and Evelyn really enjoyed watching the tour jet boats drive across the lake.

^Blake pointed out that this little lake looked like Australia. I’m afraid we were all missing that place too much since we’ve been here!

On our way back down, Blake said, “I can see the whole world from here!” So even though we missed Mt. Cook, we got to see the whole world instead. Great life lesson from our 5 year old.