Wanaka

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There can't be many places as visually beautiful as the setting for the town of Wanaka. Perched on its namesake lake amidst snow capped mountains and crystal clear waters this place is a real world class stop off on route to Queenstown.

It's so good we stayed for four nights, assisted in our decision by our hotel accomadation that we get for only $60 a night (that's about 20 Quid) instead of the $105 value as we are on the Kiwi Experience. We had forgotten what a bath and TV looked like.

The added bonus is that the vile weather that plagued us down the west coast and has gone and now we also remember what the sun looks like, wahay!

Wanaka is only a small town but we entertained ourselves by hitting the walking tracks around the lake and up to Mount Iron overlooking the town. Of course we met Paul and Rachael in Wanaka who are doing pretty much an identical route down to Queenstown.

We also tried our hand at Trout fishing in the local lake, so we hired rods got ourselves a 24 hour fishing license and caught absolutely nothing at all in our four hour fishing trip. At least we didn't also fall in like another guy we met. According to the locals the water level is so high and the amount of driftwood about means that your more unlikely to catch owt, and we were spin fishing from the shore which ain't meant to be too successful.

Wanaka isn't a cheap place to go out in as we discovered as we ventured out to a "lounge bar" and paid the earth for a small bottle of lager. Give us a humble pub any day!

Puzzling World is also an attraction in Wanaka which we visited with the Kiwi on the way out of town. There is giant maze in which we were forced to cheat (slightly) and a few illusion rooms which were very good, evan if the holograms and plasma balls seem a bit dated nowadays.

So that's it for Wanaka. Next stop, Queenstown, can it live up to the hype? we shall see. . . . . . . . . .

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Photos

The Mountains
There are lots of nearby ski runs that get busy in winter. Apparantly snow on the hills at this time of the year is unusual.

Lake Wanaka
The view from Mount Iron, again not so much a mountain as a hill.