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Published: April 11th 2010
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Early morning shot at Lake Paringa Wonderful people a Morris minor and more rain
After waking up at Lake Paringa, Nath and I daren’t leave Elton as the sand flies were waiting for us outside with baseball bats, a lot like a school bully waiting for the weak kid on his walk home. So whilst Nath eventually braved it and went to take photos of the misty morning, I didn’t leave the safety of Elton at all and actually climbed through into the cab when we were ready to leave rather than face using the door. Still on our drive down the Haast pass there seemed to be some flies inside but I was on squish patrol while Nath drove. It was a warm day, not made better by the layers of clothes I had on to make sure none of my skin was visible, but it made the drive through the pass all the more stunning. I had heard that the whole drive took a good few hours and I can understand why as we stopped every 10 mins or so to take more photos.
We were heading for Wanaka to stay with a recipient who had read about us in the Hearing Dog
news letter and wanted to offer us accommodation on our way through. Without any mobile signal for the whole pass, we were lucky that we had spoken before hand (with the recipient Ella’s daughter who lived near by) and arranged a time and place. So we took our time with the drive through the Haast pass and enjoyed a very scenic lunch overlooking the mountain range. By the time we reached Wanaka it was a boiling hot day and having freedom camped we hadn’t washed so were particularly stinky!! We headed straight into town past Albert Town where Ella and her family lived as we wanted tickets for the cinema Paradiso that we had read so much about (I’ll explain later). With these bought for that evening we headed to Albert town to meet our new friends. Having only an address and a name we headed up to a huge bungalow and met Ella and her family (other members who were visiting).
What a lovely and very “with it” lady for 89 years old, on inviting us in for drinks and biscuits she saw Nath looking at her “birds of Dunedin” book and said “you can look at these
ones coz they have feathers!”. We chatted with Ella for a few hours, talking about how long she’d had her hearing dog Misha and about her family etc. Turns out her husband flew in the 617 squadron (and was involved in the raid that sank the Terpitz) and her whole family have lived in Albert town for over 100 years - so long in fact that they owned a great deal of the land (including the pub over the road - yippee) and have a road named after Ella and her mother. We then helped ourselves to a lovely shower (we had our own bathroom) and charged up the van as we had parked on her drive and she had electrical hook up. We were meant to be staying over the road with her son and daughter but it just so happened our arrival clashed with their diary and they were away for most of the time we were there (currently working the bar for some pastoral horse event) so we’d meet them briefly tomorrow but that was all.
Now we were nice and clean we headed into town to be nice and early at the cinema Paradiso. Now
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Spot Elton? we had not only read about the cinema but had also been told about it by many people on our travels and it was the main if not the only reason to stop in Wanaka. It is a brilliant idea that we think would work really well back home, but basically the cinema room is full of old sofas, lounge chair, plane seats, lazy boys etc and even an old cut up Morris minor that you actual sit in to watch the film. Not only is it therefore very comfy but you can also take your food and drink, including beer etc into watch the film. So I’d had my eye on sitting in the Morris from when we’d bought tickets that afternoon, so we got there early, with the idea of having some dinner first and taking what ever we had left of it into the cinema with us. However although we were the first there, by the time our food was ready loads of people had started arriving and when they called us in, we were sat right at the back of the lobby. So with my stealth like ninja movements I moved towards the front of the
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Knights Bay queue as quick as possible. Ok ok I moaned out loud we’d been here nice and early and how it wasn’t fair and pushed my way forward and luckily by the time I got to the cinema lounge there was no one in the Morris minor. Everyone was pushing their way to the most comfortable looking sofas, and by passing the Morris - what luck! So I legged it and stepped in. I dot think anyone else had realised you could actually sit in it and it was just a show piece bwhahahahahahah, it’s my precious now!!
The film was ok, something with George Clooney in always turns my stomach but it was actually quite funny. Obviously not that memorable as I can’t really remember it!! At the interval we treated ourselves not only to a giant home made cookie but an ice cream too and sat in our little car swearing at passers by and speeding through our make believe streets (in our minds). I could see everyone staring at us envious of our seating position. We got back to Ella’s driveway quite late so didn’t disturb her by using the bathroom and just went straight to bed.
Next morning we went off to meet Alison and Bruce, her son and daughter, who lived down the road (and owned the local pub!!). Their house was amazing - huge and super modern. They only lived on the first floor because it had the view overlooking the river, so the lower floor (a whole other hose) was really just for people staying over. I so wished we had arranged a time to be here when they weren’t away!!! We chatted for ages about travelling and their family history and the UK, as they as a family were quite well travelled. Their house did not have good acoustics for Ella to hear what we were saying and she often got left out so I made a point of including her as much as possible. Needless to say we were so long there that she headed off home to have a nap. We left Alison and Bruce’s amazed yet again at the hospitality of the kiwi people and so glad we had met them (not to mention the armful of fresh organic produce from their garden they had given us). We decided that if we made it back this way we
would definitely stay as Alison had offered to cook us a roast dinner!!
We spent the rest of the day at Puzzle world, just our kind of activity/museum, with lots of interactive displays etc and no chance of my short attention span waning (well almost). We stayed all day, going through the Ames room and the tilted house, but what took ages, was one puzzle about bent metal that Nath JUST HAD to figure out before he could move on (which he did), and then the outside maze which took me in particular ages!!! I could have easily spent the night in their, which Nath took great delight at photographing my frustration all the way round. We then spent the rest of the evening chatting with Ella about her life and wow what a life and very with it lady, so funny. We would have liked to have stayed longer but again as with so many parts of this trip certain areas were dependant on the weather, so we had to head ff to Queenstown to be in time for Milford Sound when the rain stopped (which in Milford is hardly ever!!). So next morning we were off heading
for Queenstown by the scenic route which was actually only half the distance of the motorway but having now driven through it I can see why they built the motorway route!!
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Russ
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Wanaka
You didn't get to the Wanaka Transport and Toy Museum? Boy you could have lost Nath in there for days. Wanak is a beautiful place though and Glendhu bay is out of this world, another lotr site!!!!