Wanaka

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Headed to Wanaka today...stayed in a lovely hostel called the Purple Cow. Probably one of the best hostels we have stayed in so far and a mere $26. Although it was raining when we arrived we spent an afternoon playing pool and the monopoly as the hostel was very relaxed and had great spaces in order to just spend some time doing nothing in particular. We then had a great night visiting a small cinema called Paradiso it has sofas for seats, an old yellow Morris Minor to sit in if you wanted..although we tried the Morris we ended up settling for a sofa which we found more comfortable. Managed to drink our way through two bottles of Merlot that were available at the cinema and watched a pretty good film (Australia). Loved the fact the old projectors still require the film to be changed half way through which allowed us to have a mid film interval...took me back to my days of visiting the cinema as a child and having an ice cream during the interval, which was one major attraction of going to the cinema. At Paradiso they put on food for you during the interval and it is out on the table waiting for you if you ordered before the film...being modest travellers and keener to spend our money on liquid refreshment rather than solid we just ordered some garlic bread with cheese! The film ended about 11.45pm and we stumbled home gazing at the masses of stars you are able to view from New Zealand and content with our day of relative laziness. Went to bed sad to be leaving Wanaka but excited at the prospect of moving onto Franz Josef tomorrow and seeing the glacier.

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