After leaving the Blue Pools we started the drive back home to Christchurch. We were lucky and had a wonderfully clear sunny day for the drive through the mountains.
We stopped again at Lake Pukaki, the sunlight on the water made the colours even stronger than they had been in the stormy weather on the way out.
Although the sun was pretty high in the sky we could still make out Mount Cook in the distance. From Lake Pukaki we continued east towards Christchurch, stopping at the next lake, Lake Tekapo to admire the autumn colours.
As a reminder not to believe everything you see on the internet, the picture above was actually taken here:
This is the campervan dump station, where we stopped to clean out the campervan grey water before returning it! Nevertheless, perched on a hill on the outskirts of the town of Tekapo, it had incredible views across the lake.
We dropped down out of the mountains and onto the high plains, despite it being late autumn and unseasonably warm, the hills here are still looking very green. We couldn’t believe how lucky we had been with the weather, it had helped make for a really great few days exploring the mountains.