Back in January, Tim and I went down to the South Island to photograph a wedding in Tekapo! We decided to do a bit of exploring on either side of the wedding, going from Christchurch to Queenstown and back again over 10 days. We ate LOTS of Otago berries and stone fruit, went for lots of walks, slept in every morning, and found a whole bunch of epic views. It was glorious.
If you’re ever visiting Tekapo, it’s well worth going up to the summit of Mt John. The 360 view from up there was insane, and we spent ages looking at the plains and mountains in all their splendor. See for yourself.
How insane is this view!? That’s Lake Tekapo to the right, and Lake Alexandrina to the left. There was a wedding ceremony happening with this exact view hidden just down the mountain from this spot. It was just a field with chairs put out and the bride and groom standing against this backdrop! PLEASE someone get married here! It’s the most incredible ceremony location of all time! Can you imagine their photos?!
Ps. No, we didn’t ask random tourists to take a million photos of us during this trip… My phone was acting as a remote trigger for my camera… which is why you see my phone in my hand here haha (stuff photo-shopping that out).
My favourite part of being in Otago during January was most definitely the lupins! There are fields and fields of them everywhere. All different colours and sweet smelling. It is heaven! Also, this lavendar farm wanted to charge us $10 to go in the gate. I’m cheap, so we stood at the gate and took this photo then left haha.
Mt Cook (Aoraki) on a clear day (above)! We did the Hooker Valley track this day and it was a super easy walk with waaaay too many topless (male) tourists and one carrying a rifle (!? who does that in public places in NZ?!)… but the views were nuts, so it was still an overall winner.
This spot was in Twizel. We LOVED Twizel. We decided it’d be a really fun place to bring a whole bunch of friends one day and have a massive group camping trip!
The End! Otago, we’ll be back!