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Published: January 8th 2008
This blog I’m sure will find you bundled up in several blankets and getting warm by the fire. As for me, I’m sweating in the summer heat and cloudless sky.
I hope you all had a very happy holiday season and a Happy New Year! The holiday season is an extremely busy time in Wanaka. School is out for summer, so everyone comes to their holiday home here. The town explodes for a couple weeks—and they come from all over, not just NZ, to go boating, swimming, biking, hiking, etc. in the area. Work was extremely busy as well. People were buying things by the truckload. I worked 6 days in a row leading up to Christmas and I saw several times people spending over a thousand dollars in one go. More people=more cars and this tiny town has traffic for once! The streets are crowded, the roads take a longer time to cross, and there is no accommodation left. Many people say that Wanaka is the next Queenstown…unfortunately, they might be right, but the locals are preventing that as much as possible.
On Christmas Eve, I met up with two friends, Andre (from London) and Sandra (Canadian), and
ate enough homemade sushi for 6 people- delicious! The next morning we met up again for another feast—eggs, fresh veggies from the garden, beans, toast, hash browns, bacon, mimosas, etc. It was an amazing Christmas morning brunch and gave us enough energy for a day of climbing…or so we hoped. The weather was looking great until we got in the car (a little later than planned) and started driving to Queenstown. The clouds started to roll in and drops of water were falling on the windshield. We pulled into our destination-
Wey Creek, about 20 minutes outside Q-town. As it is about an hour’s hike up to the rock cliffs, we took our gear and rain jackets and started to make our way up. The rain wasn’t ceasing and we were just being optimistic about it anyways. We figured the hike was a good way to walk off breakfast anyways. And who hasn’t heard of a Christmas miracle? 😉 About a half hour into it, we found a dry, sheltered area—there was a massive overhang over a wall with a few bolted routes. We took a look in the book and saw that the routes were at our level, so
we unpacked and started climbing. Because it was a little later, a little colder, and a little rainier than wanted, we only did a couple climbs, but that was more than we had expected earlier in the day. We decided to warm up with dinner and hot chocolate in Queenstown. I hadn’t been back since I left in the beginning of October, so it was fun to go back, but I am glad I’m living in Wanaka. Not all too many places were open for dinner, and the ones that were were pricey. So we chose an Indian restaurant for Christmas dinner, which ended up being pretty good. Then we headed on over to
Patagonia, an infamously deliciously incredible chocolate shop which boasts the best hot chocolate around. I got the one with chili powder in it. Yum! We drove the hour back to Wanaka around 11pm and I passed out in my bed exhausted from a great day. Sorry no pictures- as I said, it was rainy and cold.
The next day was
Boxing Day, a holiday in NZ, so I didn’t have to work, but I got paid anyway! I love NZ labor laws! If it’s a
holiday and your work is closed, if it is normally a day you would work, you get paid anyways! And, if it’s a stat holiday and you stay open and are working, you get paid time and a half, plus an extra day’s holiday. It’s great! On Boxing Day, we relaxed, did some yoga, played some disc golf, and ate another huge meal. I ate so much during Christmas, it was perfect.
For
New Year’s Eve, me, my friend Sara (from Wales), Richard, Kaarl, Kirsten, Josh (Kiwis), and Anu (American) paddled in sea kayaks on Lake Wanaka. We started around 6pm (mind you, it doesn’t get dark here until around 10pm!!), and had no wind, flat water, and a clear blue day to paddle out. Couldn’t have asked for better weather. We paddles about 2 hours until we found the perfect campsite—right across from Stevenson’s Arm at the very end of the
Peninsula. We pitched our tents, had some beer/wine, started a campfire, and cooked our dinners on sticks over the fire! We were unsure of the “real time”, so we did a mini countdown ourselves based on an average of everyone’s watches, although I think it was a
little off because a few minutes later we could here the fireworks from town. The night was perfectly clear and we could see the stars so well—and you can see so many more than at home. Incredible.
The sun came bursting into our tents early, but we managed to sleep in until about 8am when it just got too hot in the tents. We ate breakfast, packed up and paddled across the lake to the island
Mou Waho. It was a gorgeous day out, but extremely windy, so we powered through the wind and choppy water to the island. What’s interesting about this island, however, is that it has a lake on it. A lake on an island on a lake! Even more interesting is that (and this is theory, but pretty sure it’s true) is that the lake on Mou Waho rises and falls with Lake Hawea (next to Lake Wanaka) through an underground tunnel/passage/thingy under Lake Wanaka that connects the two. And mind you, the lake is really deep and passes through mountains, so it’s a pretty incredible feat. The hike up to the lake is only about a half hour, but the views are spectacular! After
a quick lunch, we started our journey back to the shores of Wanaka, but the wind just kept on roaring, so we took our time and cruised back—it took a decent amount of time, but we were in no rush to get back anyways. It was a great New Years; quiet, beautiful, and away from all the manic and chaos that the holiday tourists brought to Wanaka. And that was the holidays for me!
Luckily Wanaka has calmed down since and there are less people here now, but still a decent amount more than usual. High tourist season.
I’ve been climbing a lot which is wonderful but I always seem to forget to take pictures when I go, so just imagine it. 😉
The other day I went on a trip with
Wanaka River Journeys, a company who we have a good relationship with at Racers Edge. Sue drove us out to the launch site in West Wanaka where we met up with her husband Brent. We then took a jet boat out onto the
Matukituki River driven by Brent. Along the way he told us stories of the area, and some very interesting facts. He threw
in some Maori history as well. We traveled into
Mount Aspiring National Park, landed the boat, and took a little hike into the woods. It was a gorgeous and sunny day out—a little wind, once again, but really can’t complain. We took the jet boat out, did some more 360 turns, and called it a day. I liked it a lot better than the jet boat in Makarora—it was more personal and interactive.
Ultimate frisbee is going really well! I have a handful of people who come every week, and we always seem to get backpackers (Czech Republic, Holland, USA, etc), which is awesome. This past week I had 10 people come, 9 being Americans! It was great to have so many people and we had a pretty intense game which was followed by dinner and beers at my flat. The next day about 6 of us went climbing out at Hospital Flats and later had a barbeque at Dave and Dori’s house- an American couple living in Wanaka who come to frisbee. A great couple days, great company, and great food! I hope every week has such good turnout.
In other news, if you care at all,
I changed my hair…again. After a year of growing it out, I hated how it looked, so I cut it back to short and dyed it dark brown. A good picture to follow in a later blog. 😊
That’s about it for now. Summer is officially here!! I’ll try and get my web albums updated in the next couple weeks, but for now you’ll just have to deal with the pictures on the blog. Hope everyone’s having a great start to 2008. Miss you all!
Books read:
Tuesdays With Morrie,
To Kill a Mockingbird
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