New ZealandDateline February 5, 2015, Lake Tekapo, the Lodge, and the Church of the Good Shepherd
Our next stop was Lake Tekapo, where Stephanie and Alistair welcomed us into the Lodge at Lake Tekapo. The first day was cold (10°C) and raining, and the mountains across the lake were bare. Stephanie pointed us at Kohan, the Japanese restaurant down the hill on the lake, where we had fresh alpine salmon sushi raised in the local canals, possibly the best salmon we have ever eaten. In the morning the mountains had snow on them. Over breakfast, we asked Stephanie about her family. She is a fifth-generation New Zealander, and her story turned out to be one of the most remarkable we heard on the whole trip: gold rushes and shepherds in Stirling, Scotland in 1857, a Glasgow doctor who drowned en route to the Chinese mining settlement, a class photo from a 1966 girls' prep school that proved she and Alistair had sat next to each other thirty-six years before they thought they met. After breakfast, on to the Church of the Good Shepherd, the lakeside stone chapel dedicated in 1935 with the plate-glass altar window that opens onto the mountains and the lake. Then the drive to Queenstown, by way of Mt Cook, Lake Wanaka, and the Crown Range Road, on Stephanie's recommendation. Pictures say it all.
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