Having too much fun to write

Really, we're having too much fun to spend much time on the computer, but since by 80something year old Grandma Hacault has recently become internet savvy for the first time, an is reading my blog, I have to write to keep her interested....Hi Grandma!!

After our fun times in Picton (which included a day of fishing where I caught BOTH Marc and my lunches), we headed back to Christchurch just in time for the buskers festival and to spend some more time with the family.
Every year Christchurch hosts an international buskers festival. The city flies in dozens of acts from around the world, and they spend 10 days busking at specific times at specific places. You get a guide, follow the fun and start ticking acts off as you see them. You can run around during the day, entry is free but clearly the buskers are only paid if you dish out so $5 per person is considered an acceptable fee for watching their half hour show. For people who can't make it out during the day, a night stage is set up and 6 acts each night perform to a packed crowd. The performers always pull hapless audience members on stage to "help" in the act. Marc must look like a prime target as he got dragged on stage 4 times during our festival visits. Very fun
We also bought tickets to some special night shows, the "boy with tape on his face" had us in tears with our faces sore from laughing and the "buskers burlesque" brought the art of seduction to a crowd who cat called their approval. Very well attended event, very professionally organized, very fun. It would be nice if Winnipeg could get a few more things going to attract people to our fair city in the summer.

After a week in Christchurch, back on the road to lake Tekapo! But wait, first a flat tire on the caravan that we had to spend several hours getting sorted...then...On the road to lake Tekapo!

About a 3 hour drive from Christchurch, Tekapo and the surrounding lakes are a beautiful milky blue colour. The glaciers that created these lakes many thousands of years ago also created "rock flour". These micro particles of glacially ground rocks are suspended in the water and reflect light in a way to make the water a spectacularly milky blue. Very pretty.
Because of the usual clear skies and lack of light pollution here, the university of Canterbury has an observatory on top of a mountain in the area. Marc and I took a night tour. Departing at what was usually our bed time, up the hill our bus chugged at 10:30 at night, to meet our guides who would be setting different telescopes on to different stars and constellations throughout the night. I loved it. Once you start looking at things, realizing that some of what we were looking at were over ONE HUNDRED THOUSAND light years away. The light shining from some of these stars and far away galaxies is over 100 000 years old. Amazing. Makes you feel completely insignificant. As I marveled at what I was seeing in the telescopes Marc was trained on his camera. An astrophotographer was out showing those camera geeks like Marc how to better photograph the night sky. I listened in for a bit of what the fellow was saying, it sounded a bit like the "Wa Wa Wa" tuba noise that the teachers on the Charlie Brown cartoons made, but Marc was paying rapt attention. He had a blast and didn't put his eye to a single telescope. A fabulous night.
We had planned to head off to Wanaka today, but gale force winds were on the forecast for the day, so rather than fight with a caravan on a windy road, we delayed the trip, and spent the day out at Mt. Cook park. We hiked along the bases of monstrous mountains shrouded in cloud and to a lake littered with ice bergs newly calved from the Tasman glacier. A great day.

Tomorrow, (wind permitting), we'll be back on the road to Wanaka, where we'll settle in for some hiking, mountain biking, fishing, and the Rippon music festival.

Cheers
Erin