Sue and Bob -- Hiking Cowan's Hill	The trail description said the trail was poled. Well there it is.	The trail parallels the river for a while.	This is the steep uphill. This is the only badly eroded part of the trail. But there are houses on the sides and no place for switchbacks.	Pretty walk through the trees.

	Rabbit holes?	At the top of Cowan's hill are some cool antennas.		Lake Tekapo to the north.	Some type of quarry to the west. Actually pretty ugly.

		Rows of planted trees.	The hydroelectric powerplant.	Looking south across the high plateau.	Another beautiful vista of Lake Tekapo.

	A trail marker in the foreground.	An interesting marker. Guessing that this is used to measure tectonic plate movement.		Sue with Lake Tekapo in the background.	The trail crosses the fence with a stile.

	A small observatory. After this we head downhill back to the lakeshore.	Ducks!	The lake stretches north to more mountains.	We came across a gentleman painting a beautiful water color and stopped to talk with him for a while.

	Gorgeous blues	This church is one of the most photographed spots in the country.			All the tour buses stop here for a Kodak moment.

	A turbine from the hydro-electric plant. Commissioned 1951, replaced 1985.		Cute sign	After lunch, we walked to the bottom left of the lake to climb Mt. St. Johns. The morning hike we did is the bottom right loop.	Partway up, looking east at the lake.

	Near the top, the observatory (there's a couple up there).	Not quite at the top yet. It's very very windy here today.	A water tank is cabled to the rock. It would blow away otherwise. Yes it's that windy here.	One step forward, get pushed one step sideways.	Lake Tekapo to the right, Lake Alexandrina to the left.

	Looking back along the trail, pretty exposed.	Lake Alexandrina	Lake Tekapo		About to cross the road up to the observatory (the scientists don't hike the trail :-)

				Astro Cafe, 300m up the road

					Expresso Cart

	K.C. is wearing a "Winter X Games Aspen" shirt. She lived in Climax for 6 years and worked at Snowmass.	We bought a cookie and chatted for a bit. The expresso cart sheltered us from the wind and we didn't want to leave it.	The wind is VERY strong! Sue leans against the wind.	Lots of observation domes. You can take a tour day or night and look through their telescopes.

	Lake Alexandrina on our left. Heading downhill on the road back to the trail.	Back on the trail, crossing another bench-type stile. Sue thinks this is an interesting style of stile (did George say something?).	Bob celebrates reaching a calm spot from the wind. It was literally deafening at the top.	In the middle the road winds down, further right another trail would be the long way back. Too much wind for us - we want protected treeline ASAP.	Looking down at the dam and town. Clouds casting shadows on the lake.

	Pretty trees on the trail.	Some of them have moss all over their branches.		Finally all the way down, on the beach. Other lake boat ramps had similar signs about transferring biohazards between lakes. Didymo is a nasty microscopic algae.	This part of the beach has small pebbles up higher, with bigger rock below, then sand at the very edge.

		The sand ends here.	Several folks hanging out at the beach, though no one goes in the frigid glacier-fed water.	Very cute rock cairn - a head! Somebody was having fun.	Beautiful blue water.

	Cheese and fruit for dinner - yumm! Great cheeses here.	Failed attempt to get some shots of the night sky. This area is reputed to be the best in New Zealand for viewing stars. We could see the Milky Way, constellations like Orion, The Giraffe :-), and we learned how to find the Southern Cross. Very cold and windy, but beautiful.