Astrocafe

Seem to be quite well intrenched here at sleepy old Tekapo - great place, the Cafe is now open for business on the top of Mount John to the delight of rather a lot of very surprised hillwalkers Its a very cool building and location complete with a sliding roof and big feck off 12 inch telescope linked into a plasma screen inside. Winds hit up to 200K/h up here more than enough to send a labrador flying with comic effect so its pretty robust,



Google earth links below showing the relevant portions of the southern alps below.

Mount John

Lake Tekapo


cheers

G

Interesting viewing

Bit leftfield from the usual content but I recommend grabbing a cup of tea, taking a few hours out and watching the following three part BBC Documentary from 2004 and now made available on google video.
The Power Of Nightmares part 1
Part 2
Part 3

Rather than rant away I'm sure you can draw your own conclusions.

cheers

G

Lake Tekapo

By a strange quirk of fate after a bit of housesitting over labour weekend I have scored a job and at a rather nice place to stay with Park Brae Estate at Lake Tekapo can't complain really :-).

Smug barsteward


Anyway i'm working for Earth and Sky who are building a cafe/observatory at the top of St Johns Mountain complete with kick ass telescopes. Very interesting indeed with huge potential. I'll add on a few photos later.

Lake Tekapo from the shore
Around 5 to 600 metres below the snowline if that



"Uggy" my home from home at Lake Braemore about a month ago - great camping and fishing spot and not a sole around.


As a bonus daylight savings have kicked in and the weather is hotting up as well - which is nice.

cheers

G