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Lake Tepako: Serenity Under Night Skies

The man looked about 80, and was dressed very simply. He did not look like a tourist, and did not have the look of authority either. Like many others here in New Zealand, he smiled at me; and looked interested in what I was saying to my son standing close to us both. I mentioned to him with amusement that the church we were all looking at and a lot of the tourists around us were capturing through their camera lenses was described as ‘ancient’ while the history of Christian presence in New Zealand was but 17 decades. The 80-year old smiled, and joined us in the conversation, “Yes, I feel funny when people call this church an ancient building. Actually this is a few months younger than me!” In fact, more than its antiquity, it is the vantage view of lake Tekapo and the magnificent backdrop of Southern Alps that the Church of Good Shepherd provides which makes this spot a must-stop one for tourists. It turned out that the genial gentleman in whose company we found ourselves was a volunteer who was concerned about the upkeep of the area around the heavenly lake Tekapo, one of the three lakes, roughly parallel to one another, that hold all beholders in a thrall. Their beauty is so unspoilt, and the ambience so pristine that it is hard to peel yourself away from here. The reason why this place remains so clean and completely litter-free was clear to us as the volunteer showed to us a small piece of polythene and a broken plastic ball pen which he had picked up in that area. Such service he had been rendering for the past two decades, without expecting any payment. This immediately underlined the stark contrast we in our country have with the Kiwi country. The citizen considers it a pious responsibility to keep the country clean.

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Lake Tekapo is the second-largest of three lakes oriented north–south along the northern edge of the MacKenzie Basin (named after 1850s sheep rustler James Mackenzie) in New Zealand’s South Island It covers an area of 83 square kilometres, and is at an altitude of 700 metres above sea level.

The lake is fed at its northern end by the Godley River, which draws its water from the glaciers of Southern. Hydro power stations were built at Waitaki as early as the 1930’s and Lake Tekapo in the late 1940s. A couple of decades later, in the 1960’s, technological advances made it possible to export electricity out of the South Island to the North Island. This resulted in Mackenzie Country becoming a hub of hydroelectric project construction. Over the decades that followed, the production of electricity picked up to the extent that over 16% of the requirement of the entire country is met by these schemes. Being environment-friendly makes them ideal for a country which is very particular to maintain the natural environment as unspoilt as possible. The various construction projects were completed about three decades ago, and the houses which belonged to the workers were converted into holiday homes.

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Far from the glare of city lights, Lake Tekapo, surrounded by mountains and cloud-free skies, it the ideal spot in the Southern Hemisphere to see the night sky. In order to maintain this, the local light-pollution laws require all exterior night-time lighting to de directed down onto the ground, so as to preserve the natural darkness of the sky. There are efforts underway to get a world heritage status for the area as the world's first starlight preservation area.

Close to the lake an astronomy observatory is located at Mount John, south of the tiny Lake Alexandrina. This is on a hill from where breathtaking views of Lakes Tekapo and Alexandrina are available, with a magnificent backdrop of snow covered peaks of the Southern Alps.

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Next to the Church of the Good Shepherd, one is drawn to the bronze statue of a New Zealand Collie sheepdog. The statue was commissioned by local residents in recognition of the indispensable role of the sheepdog in their livelihoods. The statue was cast in bronze in London in 1966. Gratitude for our fellow inhabitants of mother Earth is something that gives a revealing peep into the character of the New Zealander.

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Statue of New Zealand Collie sheepdog