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Published: October 28th 2010
The drive down from Franz Josef was easily our most spectacular yet, with a back drop of snow capped mountains, lush forest winding forests and mirror blue lakes. After driving for around 4 hours we reached a town about 50 minutes from Queenstown called Wanaka.
We had origninally planned to just pass through this town to view the large lake, but on arrival I think we both immediately realised that we had to spend the night there as it looked so nice and it was now approaching 7.30 and after our glacier climbed we were both quite tired. We pulled up in a small car park opposite the huge lake and next to a field which had been holding the annual labour weekend fair and planned to have a quick bite to eat and get an early night. Scott went to scope out the ‘free shower situation’ (ie what hostel we could sneak into that night) whilst Vic’s arranged the bedding.
When Scott returned another van pulled up containing the most random (but nice) bunch of guys we had ever met - an Italian with a fake passport, who had been travelling since 2006 and worked in NY, a Mancunian
who was living with an NZ family working on their farm (and who hated football?), a lad from Cornwall who had been travelling for 2 years and was working on a salmon farm, and a local kiwi. They proceeded to cook hotdogs and carrots (?!?) on their stove and we got talking to them before deciding that after our showers we would all go for a couple of drinks.
As they knew the area pretty well we decided to follow their lead and went on a fun bar crawl around the small town, having more than a few drinks and taking in a mixture of hostel bars, pubs with live bands, and small clubs playing terrible music (which they all loved), before we sneaked off, grabbing a steak pie on the way back to the van at around 1.30am.
We had set our alarms fairly early as we wanted to visit Puzzle World in Wanaka before heading to Queenstown, or morning hangovers were quickly cured by the sight of the amazing lake (aswell as a bowl of cornflakes in the back of the van) before we set-off for the short drive. We arrived at Puzzle World and found out
that there are two main ‘activies’ which can be paid for; the maze and the magic illusions centre. We went into the illusions centre first, where there are several rooms, with varying activities to do, things to see and puzzles to work out. This was fun and the illusions were incredible, especially in a small room with a tiled floor where you both stand in opposite corners but both look completely different sizes - see photo.
We then headed into the maze, which consisted of 4 coloured corners which you had to reach before finding the exit, we decided to have a race to see who could finish first but after only managing to reach one each in 25 minutes, we decided to try to find the remaining two together. This took about an hour and we only had to cheat once - haha. We then played a few of the table puzzle games, before heading to the van for the short drive to Queenstown.
Around fifteen minutes from Queenstown, we passed a sign for a town called Arrowtown, which we had read/been told was famous in the gold rush days and was supposed to be very pretty to
see with a lot of the shop fronts containing the original features and therefore a wild west feeling. We parked up and strolled through the small village, where clearly we were the only tourists in. We came across a small grass area which had a stage set up and a jazz/blues band playing for labour weekend (these guys were about 70 each but really good) and as it was a really hot day we found a patch, got some lunch and sat down watching the band for a couple of hours in the sun. Vic grabbed a quick ice cream while Scott bought some fudge and an iced mouse (there was an old school sweet shop in the village) and we went back to the van to make our way to QT, even though we could have sat there all day. One of the best things about travelling in your own vehicle in NZ is that you can detour and go off route to see towns off the beaten track which is great as sometimes these are the best places!
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Tour of Great Britain
Dear Victoria, As I sit here in Braintree, Essex with my beautiful wife Mandy to my left and Buddy by my feet, I have to be completely honest and say that you would have enjoyed doing a tour around the counties of England rather than travelling the world!!!!!!!!!!! Your bloggs are completely astounding and we all love and miss u lots xxxxxxxxx D M S Z L J B XXXXXXXXXXXXXXXX