Still feeling like an extra in Lord of the Rings - Wanaka

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12th April ’12 Te Anau to Wanaka

Still feeling like an extra in Lord of the Rings and definitely a Hobbit, small, round and always wanting to eat we left Te Anau and followed the road back to the Queenstown area in order to pick up the Crown Range Road. This road leads over a vast mountain range, winding, switching back and twisting and turning its way up and over the top – where we stopped for sarnies and the views, then down into the Wanaka region. This is the gateway to the Mt. Aspiring National Park.

Wanaka is a lovely tiny town nestling on the shore of Lake Wanaka with towering mountains in every direction! We were staying at The Shed hostel right in the centre of the town and when we arrived a huge group of American ‘young people’ had just checked in and their leader was about to take them out, hmmmmm hope we get some sleep tonight! Never mind the hostel bar is hosting a bbq and pub Olympics with karaoke tonight so that’s something to look forward to……

As we arrived relatively early we not only did our quick trot round the town and look in the supermarket – which seems to be the routine here, but discovered an Indian which boasted that it was voted No.1 on Trip Advisor’s best Indian food in the South Island and did a Happy Hour $20 meal deal, so no contest with the hostel bbq then! Anyway my point was supposed to be that we did a long walk around the area, along the lakeside and up and around the town area, up to the lookout at the memorial on the hill where the views were absolutely spectacular and found the cinema Paradisio – which sounded great as it has couches instead of rows of seats and you can even sit in an old car if you want a drive thru experience!! Unfortunately we weren’t able to try it out as there wasn’t anything on that we wanted to see at the right time, which was a shame. We never did come across the Lord of the Rings tour though so despite feeling like a Hobbit I never got the chance to dress up as one. We did some investigating about the filming locations though and found out they aren’t easily accessible, generally up dirt tracks and out in the wilds and we had in fact been in the general vicinity of a lot of them – no wonder I kept saying that looks like a scene from LOR!

Even though our room was right opposite the TV lounge remarkably we did get to sleep!

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Photos

Wanaka
On the way

Wanaka
Town and our hostel - The Shed

Wanaka
Lakeside

Wanaka
Lakeside

Wanaka
From Memorial Lookout

Wanaka
View from the Memorial Lookout

Wanaka
From Memorial Lookout