In one of our wakeful moments during the night, we looked out at the acclaimed stars. They were certainly very bright and numerous but our own at home are pretty impressive too, so perhaps we did not fully appreciate the awesomeness.

The next three days are more about the journeys than the destinations. Before leaving Lake Tekapo, we retrace our steps into the town for provisions and call in at the ‘historic’ Church of the Good Shepherd. Our arrival coincides with that of a coach load of selfie stick waving, Japanese tourists, who seem incapable of understanding the clear graphic that forbids photography inside the church. It appears that standing in the doorway and pointing one’s camera towards the interior is somehow not taking photographs of the inside of the church. To be honest, although there are lovely views of the lake from here, if you can dodge the plethora of tourists, we aren’t too impressed with the ‘historic’ nature of the church, even by Antipodean standards; it was built in 1935!

We head south down the 8, passing through a more barren landscape. We drive through Twizel, a town that grew up round the Hydro-electric industry and along the twists and turns of the Lindis Valley to Cromwell. This town, on the shores of the man-made Lake Dunstan, is in what used to be a gold mining area but is now better known as a wine-growing region. We take a walk round the town, most of which is housing estate and eventually reach the deserted historic quarter, which we remember from our previous visit. I was expecting to need multiple coats, gloves and hats but it is beautifully warm and despite road signs warning us that it is winter, our camper van tells us that the outdoor temperature is 21 degrees, allegedly warmer that it is at home! This is as far south as we reached on our previous visit, so from here onwards we are in uncharted territory.