Leaving Christchurch with its heavily damaged city, the road takes me through the Canterbury Plains, a mostly flat area where farming dominates. Apart from the occasional braided river, this landscape is not particularly interesting. Near Geraldine, I turn inland. The road winds its way through the hills into Mackenzie Country.

My first stop is Lake Tekapo. While this lake and the town of the same name on its shores lie pretty much in the middle of nowhere, it is a busy place during daytime. The lake shines turquoise in the afternoon sun and the sky has virtually no clouds at all. Even on a warm summer’s day the lake is pretty cold, being fed from glaciers which are also responsible for the awesome colour of the water.

Every tourist and plenty of buses stop here at this small chapel. In the late afternoon, it finally gets more quiet and the light gets a little softer even with the absolutely clear and blue sky of today and the clean air which makes the mountains in the distance appear to be rather close when the ones in the middle are in fact more than 20km away.

Early on the next morning, with only few other tourists before the crowds arrive, the church is open for a visit. Back in 2013, it was still allowed to take photos inside the church; this is no longer the case.

The third photograph was made with a Canon EOS 6D and an EF 24mm f/2.8 IS USM lens. The exposure was 1/1000 second at f/8 and ISO 200. The photograph was edited in Adobe Lightroom. The other photographs were made with a Canon EOS 6D and an EF 35mm f/2 IS USM lens. You can find all of these photos along with others from this journey across New Zealand’s South Island in my album New Zealand 2013 or on Flickr.