Silver River Stargazing — Attraction in South Island

Astrophotography Tour: The tour takes place on a private farmland, in a place where there is almost no light pollution at all, offering excellent conditions for astrophotography. The guide/teacher is local astrophotography guru Fraser Gunn, who works at Mt John observatory and is immensely knowledgeable about photography in general, and in particular astrophotography. He will definitely get you started if you are new to the discipline, and will help you improve if you have experience. The telescope used allows you to take really nice shots of nebulas or stars clusters for example. Once taken, the shots are also processed on LR and PS by Fraser (he will be happy to explain to you all the modifications he makes and why). At the end of the tour, or on the following day, you will be offered a pendrive with the shots taken during the tour. Regarding Silver River tours: Steve, the owner, and all his amazing team are the kind of people you really want to meet while in NZ. They will make you understand why Kiwis have such a nice reputation of being among the friendliest people in the world. They will make sure that the tour is tailored to what you want to see or do, and will make you enjoy Tekapo much more than you would if visiting on your own. We were lucky enough to be invited on Steve's farm tour (because I was the 1st guest on the astrophotography tour), and it turned out to be really interesting too. Steve and Bonnie are so enthusiastic and so relax that you will be sad to leave them by the end of the day. The places you will visit are on Steve's private land, meaning you can only access them with the tour. You'll get to see native birds, alpacas, and of course the famous merino rams. You will also get some incredible views of the area and drink fresh water directly from a stream, all this while learning a lot about farming in NZ. Sheep shearing or sheepdogs demonstrations are not included in the tour, but Steve makes sure that the tour stays family friendly since the kids will have the opportunity to handfeed some animals kept as pets (sheep, alpacas, ducks, and whisky the pig). I didn't get a chance to try the stargazing tour, but given the other reviews, I'm sure they are just as amazing as the astrophoto and farm tours. It would honestly be a mistake to miss an opportunity to go on a tour with these guys...

I was really disappointed with this star gazing experience. This company was recommended to me by a friend who said she got loads of time to look through telescope etc and that the guide was awesome. Unfortunately for our group of 8 there was only one guide and one telescope, and we must have only had maximum 5mins each looking through it (about 6 chances to look with a queue behind waiting to use it). The guide was obviously passionate about it all, however it was hard to understand what he was talking about. There was a lot of assumed knowledge, and he didn't really explain anything to us. I guess it must have been a different guide or he was having an off day. Very disappointing as we had been really looking forward to it and felt like it was a big waste of money. 75 dollars a person for 5 minutes of telescope time and minimal explanations.

Updated review: following communication with silver river in response to my feedback, the customer service was excellent and they were genuine and effective in rectifying the issues. They have offered a full refund for my trip and also offered the opportunity to have another tour. They have taken on board the feedback and this seems to be an exception in contrast to all the other positive reviews they have receievd since they've opened. We established that visibility wasn't the best on the night of the tour and customers are usually offered the chance of a refund instead. This could explain why there wasnt much telescope time and the guide needing to show photos on his phone instead etc. I am impressed with the company, especially its customer service and their genuine passion for...

Highly recommend this company for their super professional and highly informative stargazing experience. Unfortunately our stargazing experience ended just twenty minutes after it began due to bad weather. As we were around Lake Tekapo for a couple of days but there was constant rain. We rang up the company during the evening and they informed us that the weather changes quickly and if possible they will run the tour. They also sent us an email and informed us on the phone around 11 PM that the tour will take place. We checked in at 11:45 Pm, got our warm jackets from the check in store, and the entire group was organized into three sub groups. We were taken on a short 10 minutes drive to the nearby mountain. Once we reached the telescope we were given clear instructions on how to view and not to turn on any lights on our devices. We had a nice patch of empty sky, however, during the first viewing of Jupiter the clouds started to cover up the sky. During the wait time our guide kept on sharing information on the stars and galaxies. Unfortunately the cloud cover became consistent so our tour got cancelled. The next morning their company sent an email providing us 100% refund on our booking. There was an option to rebook but we had to move on due to our itinerary. Highly recommend this company and would advise on purchasing...