I slept so well inside my lovely green tent, that it was 8:30 when I woke up, the sun has already risen up high. But once I open the tent, WOW! The sky was so clear that everyone can see Mt. Cook at the background of this wonderful drawing!

If you have enough time, it is really worth spending 2 days biking up to Mt. Cook village and down, people said you can see the glacier there. What a pity that I had to pass that as my schedule is quite tight. However I still got time to dip my feet into the turquoise-colored lake, since all the lakes in the region (Lake Tekapo, Pukaki, Benmore, Avimore and Waitaki) came from the glacier of Mt. Cook, the minerals or special chemicals in the icy water result in such turquoise color. Such a spectacular natural scenery!

Continue along SH8, passing Twizel and arriving Omarama, they are little town with plenty of tourists. There are a few salmon farms along the way, where it is FREE to feed the salmon if you have time. I saw there are places where you can hire fishing gear and catch your own salmon too!

Then turning to SH83, I came across Lake Benmore and Lake Avimore. I was planning to finish my day in Otematata but it was only 5pm, and I still got 3 hours sunlight to go to Kurow, so I decided to carry on. On the way, you will see this sign:

meaning super windy in this region. It is TRUE, again the wind is hindering me a lot today, but I didn’t complain like the first day.

New Zealand generates a lot of hydro-electric power, along those turquoise lakes and rivers, there are dams which were built to hold the water and allow it to turn the turbines and produce electricity! Those projects are so successful that it reduces half of the country’s coal and natural gas consumption!

Maybe they can develop more Wind energy too, as I can tell you how WINDY this country is!

Lake Pukaki to Kurow 90.8km