Wanaka

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Beautiful Wanaka. After three days in Queenstown I took a bus to Wanaka. I wasn't sure what I would be doing there and Im still not sure exactly what I did there but I was there for 3.5 weeks....almost a month and I loved it. I spent some time at the YHA hostel and became good friends with a girl named Rachel who I ended up spending Christmas with. I lived in a really nice house with a kiwi couple (John and Jody) who became good friends of mine as well and kindly included me in their group of friends. I walked around the lake and looked at the mountains. I searched for jobs and after finding one, worked a week and then promptly quit. I went on some great hikes but mostly I just kind of started to get a feel for New Zealand, to learn that biscuits are cookies and the prawns are shrimp and that if you ask for the restroom, no one will understand. You have to ask for the toilet. Then I started to feel the wonder lust creeping in, having seen so little of the country yet, I decided it was time to get moving.......

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Photos

My House in Wanaka
This was such a great house and I had the whole basement to myself with my own bathroom and sliding glass doors out to the deck and the rose garden....not to mention the great flatties!

Diamond Lake Hike
Day two of two great days with Traci. Did I tell you I bumped into her a month later in Takaka and she hooked me up with the job and the flat I am living in now as well as giving me her stove and pot and a few other things before she flew to Spain? Amazing girl.

Party at our place!
This ended up being kind of a "tragic" night(as my friend Caitlin used to say after an evening of too much drinking. But it looks like I was having fun!

Mt Roy Hike
Number 1 on my NZ top ten so far. 3 hour trudge up a mountain rewarded by views of lake Wanaka and all the surrounding area and the southern alps!

Me and Rachel at the lake
One of the reasons Wanaka is so special is because the town sits right on the lake and the mountains are directly behind it so you can enjoy mountain and lake views while you are doing ordinary things like going to the post office!