Blogs from Wanaka, Central Otago, South Island, New Zealand, Oceania

Geo: -44.6987, 169.133Not sure how many more lakes and snow topped mountains we can stand...Wanaka is lovely, more relaxed than Queenstown, and just a bit warmer.We stopped at Arrowtown and the Bungy bridge on the way, then picked up some cheese and bread from the Cheesery - for lunch.Checked into another Lakeview holiday park, and went for a wander around town.Back to the camper for cuppa, cake, reading and blog updating.Home cooked chicken shnitzels and salads for dinner. ... read more

Geo: -44.6987, 169.133The days had been counting down and I knew I had to face one of my fears. So far bungy jumping was in the back of my mind as we left Fox Glacier and headed towards Wanaka for some Skiing and Snowboarding at Treble Cone.We stayed in a small rest area at the base of a bridge just before Haast. It was a pretty wet night with some very heavy rain thrashing itself in to the camper and where the river had increased dramatically over night.We pushed on the following day to Wanaka, hoping the weather was clearer over the pass, but it was not. It continued to rain throughout the day. We didn't do too much in Wanaka unfortunately because we were looking forward to visiting it but the rain kept us quiet ... read more

Mar. 15 Wanaka Nelson has a competitor for my favorite NZ community. Wanaka has it all: a beautiful blue mountain lake, hiking trails, friendly community, decent shopping, restaurants, and an overall peaceful attractiveness to it. We spent our first day here doing a lot of walking. We headed out of town about 2km where we started up to the view point on Iron Mountain. This hill is about 260 m high and took a good 40 minutes to climbed to the top. But the views made it all worth while. We had a 360 degree view of Wanaka and the surrounding areas. Lakes, mountains, rivers, and fields. We then headed down the hill on a much steeper incline that took us down the hill to a place called Puzzle World. Now Puzzle World totally lived up ... read more

Geo: -44.6987, 169.133Woensdag 9 februariNadat we vanmorgen Te Anau hadden verlaten, kwamen we terug in zonnig weer. Het blijft wat killig maar de lucht ziet toch al helder blauw. Het was bovendien weer een erg mooie route door het landschap waar vele scènes van de Lord of the Rings zijn opgenomen. Na wat hindernissen zoals een kudde schapen, een kudde koeien en schapen, talrijke wegwerkzaamheden, enz kwamen we tegen de middag aan in Queenstown. Queenstown is de hoofdstad van de extreme sporten, en de plaats waar het bungee jumpen is uitgevonden. We hebben de fameuze brug gezien, maar hebben er niet aan mee gedaan. Ik heb op het einde van de vakantie nog een sprong van de Auckland tower gepland. We zijn in Queenstown met de gondel de berg op gegaan. Daar hebben we meegedaan aan ... read more

So we were in Wanaka from February 10-12th and had a fairly relaxing time. Wanaka is a gorgeous town because it's set in the valley next to a giant lake and it's surrounded by mountains. We didn't do too much while we were there because we were recuperating from all of our activities in Franz Josef. The night we arrived we walked around the town and then had a group bbq with the people on our bus. It gave us a chance to say goodbye to that group since most of them were leaving Wanaka a day earlier than us. Later that night, when we were outside our hostel fighting with the vending machine, we heard a familiar phrase floating through the night air: "Saskatchewan? It's in the middle part of Canada..." So of course we ... read more