Serene Silence by Turquoise

“What I was really looking forward to over the next few days was this: jet-boating across the freezing Rakaia river and visiting Lake Tekapo, one of the most beautiful lakes in the world with turquoise-hued water,” Hindustan Times reporter Pranav Dixit writes. “In the rays of the setting sun, the surface glinted like an unbroken sheet of glass. The pinks of the evening blended with the pale green of the water and I sat on a rock by the edge of the lake in serene silence.” Lake Tekapo is the second-largest of three roughly parallel lakes running north–south along the northern edge of the Mackenzie Basin. The lake is at an altitude of 7m above sea level.