Wanaka (3.11.12 - 4.11.12)

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Although it rained pretty much the entire time we were in Franz Josef, it never rained as hard as that last night when it woke us both up several times. However come the morning it was finally sunny again. We started the day by driving back down the crazy winding road to Fox and walking around lake Matherson or the mirror lake, unfortunately for us, it was a little bit hazy and windy, so no stunning reflections for us today. After our walk we drove on round the interesting winding hill side roads, full of sharp turns and blind corners. We stopped for lunch at knights point, which was a very busy view point with a constant steam of bus trips popping in and out, and was a bit to windy for standing outside for too long. We drove on to Wanaka, which is absolutely stunning,there is a big beautiful lake surrounded by more snow capped peaks. It is really near Queenstown, so a similar landscape. The last hour of the drive saw us drive round parts of Lake Wanaka and Lake Hawea, they were separated by a line of snow capped peaks and both were a bit special. When we arrived we went to the supermarket, and as we got out it started snowing...mad weather! However by the time we left he shop it had stopped, but remained cold. We had a quick walk around town before tea, and decided to go to the paradiso cinema on the evening, to get us out the van. This was a pretty cool experience as it was a small boutique style cinema, where they had sofas and served fresh baked cookies at the interval. It was however a really cold night in Wanaka, the coldest yet (we had to layer up a bit).

The next day we did not have an overly long drive ahead of us, so in the morning we hired some bikes from a local shop and headed off on a lake side bike ride, we were told in the shop would take 4 hours. So we rode along the lake in the beautiful sun and along to the next town, Albert town and then back on the road. In all this took 2 hours! So we did a bit extra in the other direction in order to find a nice spot for our lunch. After we took the bikes back, we had a quick wander around town before heading off to our next destination - Te Anau.

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