This morning was very beautiful. A slight cooling breeze, alpine clarity in the air and a hot sun. Kayaks!
By 1100 we were on the water. Pip was in an open kayak, which she prefers, but found it a bit difficult because it had no decent back straps. It was easiest to paddle lying flat backwards! Sarah had a longer, yellow kayak, and could experiment with a rudder for the first time. Great fun.
The water in Lake Tekapo is opaque and milky, with rock flour ground down by the glaciers that feed the lake. You can dip your oar in and barely see the blade. The edges are very sheer, straight down into the valley ground out in the last Ice Age, and at the deepest reach 120m down. That's a lot of ice.
Lake Tepako is competing with the jewels of the Southern Mackenzie area, Queenstown and Wanaka. It's got a long way to go (its permanent population is under 400), but there's a huge amount of building going on. On the Lake itself, this translates to a lot of water-skiers and jet boats. You can always hear an angry engine going round in circles somewhere.
Nonetheless, it was great to paddle at last in the high lakes of New Zealand, knowing the drips from the oars onto our hot skin came from the ice of the Southern Alps.