Lake Tekapo - Tekapo Springs Star Gazing and Hotpools
Tekapo Springs Stargazing: The Night the Clouds Rolled In
Most people stop at Lake Tekapo for the lake, and fair enough. It’s 83 square kilometres of turquoise glacial water sitting about halfway between Christchurch and Queenstown. But we were there for the stars. Tekapo Springs runs stargazing tours right in the middle of one of the darkest skies on the planet, and we’d been looking forward to it for weeks.
Then the clouds rolled in. What happened instead turned out to be one of the best things we did on the whole South Island trip.
Lake Tekapo: Stargazing in the Dark Sky Reserve
Lake Tekapo sits inside the Aoraki Mackenzie International Dark Sky Reserve, the largest of its kind in the southern hemisphere. With hardly any light pollution, on a clear night you can see the Milky Way, the Magellanic Clouds and the Southern Cross.
Tekapo Springs and Stargazing has two tour options. Soak in the Stars is a 90 minute experience with guided telescope viewing and storytelling, followed by an exclusive soak in a 38.5 degree hot pool with floating rings. There’s also a shorter 60 minute tour that’s just the telescope viewing, which gets you back before midnight.
Every ticket includes a free daytime pass to the hot pools, so you can go the day before or the day after. We did a bit of both.
The tours run whatever the weather. On cloudy nights the telescopes get swapped for an indoor virtual reality tour of the universe. That’s the one we ended up doing, and honestly, we’re glad we did.
Arriving at Night: Follow the Red Lights
We were asked to arrive at 10.05pm for a 10.15pm start. For us that’s a big ask after dinner and a couple of wines, but we kept ourselves busy and made it. We weren’t even the first ones there, which is unusual.
When you pull into the car park you just follow the red lights up the stairs. Red light doesn’t add to light pollution, so the whole place glows red at night. Inside there’s water and hot drinks, and our hostess kicked things off with the basics of the Milky Way.
Then she split us into groups for a quiz about the universe. Lyle considers himself a bit of a quiz master. He knew nothing. Neither did I. A few of the answers that stuck with us:
The Milky Way is roughly 100,000 light years across and holds somewhere between 100 and 400 billion stars
Earth sits about 25,000 to 26,000 light years from the centre of the galaxy, out on a minor spiral arm called the Orion Spur
A light year is a distance, not a time. It’s about 9.46 trillion kilometres
When you look at something millions of light years away, you’re seeing it as it looked millions of years ago
Lyle has been down so many space rabbit holes since, I think he’s planning to become an astronaut.
The Virtual Reality Tour: Floating Through Space
Most people in our group had never tried virtual reality, us included. The staff explained the headsets and earphones, there were plenty of them on hand to help, and it was easy. Even Lyle got it straight away, which is saying something.
The thing nobody tells you is that it’s not like watching a screen. You can look up, down and all around, and there’s a whole universe in every direction.
It opens with you sitting in front of the Church of the Good Shepherd, surrounded by lupins, with Lake Tekapo and the Milky Way right there. Then the stars start coming towards you and suddenly you’re floating through the Milky Way.
From there it takes you through how stars are born and how they die, from nebula to supernova. At one point the sun is right beside your face and you can see its surface. You can reach out and spin a planet with your hand, or pick up a meteor. There are shooting stars streaking past, Saturn and its rings, and the Southern Cross and Orion drawn out with lines so you can finally see what everyone’s on about.
My favourite was the moon. It comes right up to you, this big glowing ball, slowly spinning through its phases. Then you watch the moon landing, the dust kicking up as the astronaut leaves his footprints, and he turns around and gives you a little wave. The moon buggy is there too. It’s so realistic.
Lyle was taking in every fact. I was just blown away by how clever it all was. It went for at least half an hour and we’d both go back and do it again.
The Night Soak: Steam, Red Lights and a Māori Instrument
After the virtual reality we were handed fluffy robes and towels and headed to the change rooms. They’re big and spotless, and as someone who’s a bit fussy about pool cleanliness, I was impressed. No chlorine smell either.
It was about five or six degrees outside, and Lyle is a bit of a sook in the cold, but he braved it. You hand your robe to the staff member and walk down into the 38.5 degree water, and the cold just disappears. The pool is lit in red with steam rising off it, and it’s big enough that the 30 or so people there could spread out and find their own spot. There are foam rings if you want to float on your back and look up.
Our guide shared stories of how Māori and the ancient Greeks read the stars. Then, because of the clouds, one of the staff came out and played a traditional Māori instrument up to the sky to try and part them. With the steam, the red glow and that being the only sound, it was eerie in the best way.
Back in Daylight: Day Spa and Hot Pools
We went back the next day to shout ourselves a bit of luxury, and I couldn’t believe the size of the place. At night we’d only seen one pool. In daylight there are three hot pools shaped after the local lakes, Ohau, Pukaki and Tekapo, plus a whole area for kids.
Up at the Glacial Day Spa I had a Revive massage and hydrating facial. It was an hour and felt like ten minutes. Lyle had a deep tissue massage with the lovely Rosella from Sardinia, and they talked about Italy the whole time.
Afterwards we went into the adults only pool. We were there in school holidays and it wasn’t noisy at all, but it was nice to have that quiet space after a massage. Sitting in that hot water looking straight out at Lake Tekapo and the snow capped mountains, I don’t think you’d find a hot pool with a better view anywhere.
Mini Golf: Two Holes in One and Still Beaten Easily
The steam and sauna rooms were there for us too, but we went for mini golf instead. Outside of winter, the ice skating rink (open roughly April to August) gets turned into an 18 hole mini golf course. It’s beautifully kept and each hole has a bit of a challenge to it.
Lyle would like everyone to know he scored two holes in one, plus a special shot on the last hole that I managed to get on video. That video has since vanished.
I’d like everyone to know I still flogged him.
There are tables around the course, so you can have lunch while the kids play. In winter there are ice skating lessons and ice hockey games, and you’ll see hockey jerseys hanging around the café.
For Families: Snow Tubing and the Aqua Play Area
If you’re there in school holidays with kids, this is the place. The kids’ Aqua Play Area comes with the standard hot pools pass and gives you all day access to the hot pools and the cooler pools, which are still a comfortable 28 to 32 degrees. There’s a shallow one metre pool, water jets, fountains and interactive showers.
The kids looked like they were having the best time on the snow tubing. You grab a tube and a helmet, ride the magic carpet to the top and slide down. A standard ticket covers a one hour slot, and there are double tubes if you want to go with someone. The snow machine was still running when we visited, but mid October is usually the end of the tubing season.
The Altitude 720 Café and Bar has an open fire inside for winter and a terrace and balcony for summer. It’s fully licensed, with cabinet food, pizza, fish and chips and snacks. We didn’t have a drink this time. Lyle was too focused on his golf.
Booking Tekapo Springs and Stargazing
There are all sorts of combinations you can book: soak, skate, tube, golf, spa. Have a look at what suits you on the Tekapo Springs website at www.tekaposprings.co.nz
If you’re spending a couple of days in Lake Tekapo, we can’t see why you wouldn’t do this. Even a couple of hours on a day trip is worth it. We’d go back in a heartbeat, and next time we’re hoping for clear skies. Mind you, after that virtual reality tour, we might be secretly hoping for clouds.