Dark Sky Project

It's been 11 years since I was here last. Tekapo has definitely changed from the little country town I remember. The Dark Sky Project has done amazing work in the preservation of this Dark Sky site, now future generations will be able to experience the Darkest skies in the southern hemisphere, a photographers dream canvas! Thank you Dark Sky Project for the excellent preservation of this natural wonder!

What an amazing experience! If you have the time and chance (and good weather), go for the summit experience. Very friendly and knowledgeable team. The bus driver was great as well. Photos were taken from my iPhone. Got to look at planets and stars through the telescopes.

The experience is marvellous and the stars are amazing in the sky. The guide explained the stories of the stars in full details while easy to understand. They also helped us to take great picture of the moon. A cannot miss experience in Lake Tekapo.

Good chocolate and nice view to be enjoyed here! The lake in front is lake tekapo with calm and peaceful weather. The time was freeze when I was there. I really like New Zealand.

Amazing experience which I cannot recommend enough. Our driver and guide, Quinna, was knowledgeable, warm and super friendly. She made it pleasant and easy to identify stars- and I can now proudly identify the alpha centuri and southern cross. Bonus points for helping me find my own scorpio constellation! Impressed and satisfied with the trip. Here are five stars for this amazing star team!

We joined the Virtual Stargazing Tour tonite and the experience was wonderful. The tour guide, Mr. Andy Wei, was very professional and friendly. He was passionate about explaining about the astronomy to us in details and answering our questions. He conducted the tour in our mother language, Cantonese, to facilitate our understanding. Appreciate it and thumbs up :) @DarkSkyProjectNZ

We had a great time. Would like to specially mention one of the staff, Sylvia? Although i was on the English tour and she was guiding on the Mandarin one, she noticed i had become a little unwell due to a prior medical condition. She cared for me extremely well and when i was feeling able she took a chair from the cafe down to the tour area for me. It would be good to have a little more seating in the telescopes area. Anyway, i was very well looked after by this warm and caring guide.

* The stargazing tour is well organized. * The guide Tonic is so professional, very knowledgeable and thoughtful, deserving 7 stars 👍👍👍 * For Chinese visitors, it’s better to choose the group guided by Tonic who speaks Chinese, much easier to understand both the science and the story.

Amazing.... Educational, interesting, spectacular views of stars, clusters, the moon.... Well informed and educated guides take you millions and billions of light years from home!;! Well worth the late night!

I really wanted to like this more! We had such high hopes as we entered the main building and waiting for our tour. Really nice cafe and gift shop that looked so professional - nice accommodations to set the experience. The building itself is so professional and had some really cool history on the project and observations that have been made here. It was awesome to see the telescope and read more about it! Ironically, I now wish we would have just done the experience there in that building they offer during the day/when the sky isn't clear. We booked the 10pm tour and as we gathered to start, the group was giddy with excitement. We had the option of jackets but it was nice out in the summer. We then boarded a coach bus that took us ~20 minutes up to a nearby peak where the observation tour is. It was partly cloudy that night, to no fault of the team, but once we arrived at the top the tour started to feel disjointed. The group was large, and not well managed - rude guests were talking loud, not listening, wandering off. Kids were yelling, laughing, interrupting the speakers - super distracting. I would have loved an adults only option or a more strict policy on keeping the group together and listening. I'd also love to see the tour leaders have microphones or something so all attendees can clearly hear. It was evident that the main tour guide was super knowledgeable, but it felt hard to understand at times since I'm a star/space novice. They had three stations where we went to different telescopes to see different types of star groupings which was cool, but felt disjointed at times with no clear organization. There was a lot of down time between going to the different telescopes, so I found myself asking a lot of questions, and then others would gather around so they could hear more info too. It felt like a steep price for peering into three telescopes, and I would have loved more general information on stars. We did get a 50% refund because it was cloudy and we couldn't see as much, which felt like the right price for the experience. I'm a bit town on whether I'd recommend this to others!

It was a very interesting experience, having never done something like this before! You can read the other reviews for full details, but effectively you get an informative tour about the Mt John Observatory (next door to Tekapo town), an introduction to the main stars and planets in the night sky, and then also a chance to use three of their telescopes to peer at various planets / stars. Overall, the tour is about 1hr 15mins in total I reckon (as total time end to end is 2 hours). Do wear warm, as even though we went on a summer night, and was told it was 10 degrees up there, it did get colder as the wind picked up! And you do a lot of standing around in the open. They do provide HUGE coats to borrow for free, definitely do take one. But bring a beanie and gloves too, if you have them. They are also rather ethical; if there is cloud cover, they will tell you before the tour starts, and you can opt for a refund. Note - this option is only for the Summit Experience, not for the cheaper Crater Experience. On our night, we were told before the tour that the skies were 80% clear, but there was risk of some movement of clouds from nearby. We were offered the choice of a refund, but we decided to go ahead. During the tour itself, the visibility got progressively worse. We were maybe 1hr into the tour, when they had to cut it short - the last 5-10 mins I believe. They offered a 50% refund to everyone, proactively. Which was a very fair result, IMO. Price-wise, its not cheap at NZD200+ per person. I wouldn't label it great value for money. But it is a very unique experience. Timing, I would say that the 10pm tour was a bit too early for peak-summer (1st Jan). The sun had barely set yet. I would say go for the tour at least 2 hours after sunset time, so you can get the full "dark sky" experience with all the stars visible. Do book in advance if you can, as the tour groups snatch up loads of tickets 6 months out, from what I've been told.

Cancelled more than 24 hours in advance. Spoke with someone and they assured that experience was cancelled. When returned to US was fully charged. Called to discuss, they were nice on phone but never followed through. Ultimately had to dispute transaction with credit card company. Wish I had booked an experience on get your guide or Viator that has reliable cancellation processes. This company is nice on the phone but makes it difficult to cancel. I question their business ethics. Horrible overall experience.

My husband and I were only in town for 1 night and had booked the Mt John Observatory tour for 11p. Around 7p a huge storm blew in and I was afraid it would be cancelled due to viability. We called around 10 for a status (it seemed to have cleared up by then) and they said to come on down (but didn't say whether it was on). Once the whole group was checked in, they announced that it was 95mph winds on the mountain, which was not safe to even drive us up. While I was totally bummed, they did offer several options: 1. a total refund; 2. rebook for tomorrow (which wasn't an option for us) or 3. get refunded the difference but do the crater experience. I didn't want to miss the "best stars in the world" so we did the crater experience. It was something you can't even describe it was so beautiful! The stars were so close, so bright and there were so many! I wanted to lay on the ground and just stare up at them since I was in so much awe. It felt like a dream. There were 2 different telescopes we could see clusters of stars through such as "the jewel box" and even Saturn's rings. Someone asked where the big dipper was when our tour guide reminded us that is a constellation of the Northern hemisphere...we were in the Southern. Mind blown- I hadn't even thought of that. This is a pretty incredible tour and you also learn about how bad light pollution is (headlights, porch lights, retail signs). They explain the Dark Sky Initiative and how important it is that we protect the night sky. Trust me- you will not regret this. They even offer some amazingly long, warm jackets to protect you from the bitter cold.