Wanaka, town on a lake

(Editor's note: This is entry 2 of 3 wrapping up my most recent road trip. I will get some pictures up later.)

We awoke around 9AM to find rain still falling from the Queenstown skies, which immediately ended our thoughts of driving through Wanaka and up to Mt. Aspiring National Park, as Richard and Robin had suggested the day before. Oh well. We checked out of our room, and walked into Queenstown, picking up some fresh muffins along the way. We did our obligatory e-mailing and then stopped into Richard's store, 45 Degrees South, to say goodbye. All that done, we got into the trusty Toyota Camry and made our way towards Wanaka.

There are two routes from Queenstown to Wanaka and we chose the more scenic (i.e. steeper) of the two, but the views were somewhat neutralized by the rain and accompanying fog. Still, the scenery was amazing and I enjoyed the short hour drive to Wanaka.


We checked into our lodging for the night, the Wanaka Lakeside Holiday Park, and were shown to cabin number 5, which was a glorified prison cell. We weren't there for the accommodations anyway, so the room didn't matter too much to me. After a quick, refreshing nap, we took to the streets of Wanaka with hopes that the rain would give us a reprieve and that we could actually see what the town had to offer. Wanaka had been described to us a "mini-Queenstown", but we found Wanaka to be a "not as exciting and smaller Queenstown". Still, Wanaka had some charm. To start with, there is a beautiful lake right in the heart of the town, bordered by some majestic mountains. The streets were not as lively as Queenstown, but still gave us plenty to look at. We got some food at a bar called Shooters and watched some Rugby (great sport to watch down here, because everyone is real into everything!) and enjoyed the sun fighting through the crowds. After some more walking around (including locating the "tree in the water" that is a top tourist attraction in Wanaka) we headed back to our room for a brief rest. We went back out wandering around to find a dinner spot and settled on a place called Trout's. I got fresh salmon which was mighty tasty and a glass of wine. After dinner, we were both quite beat and headed back to our room via another round of internet.


I wonder if we were not as interested in Wanaka because we simply didn't have the energy for the town that we did in Queenstown? Perhaps, but I still think Queenstown would kick Wanaka's butt if there were some form of town fight or something.

We woke up early on Thursday (7AM) with grandiose plans of heading to Mt Aspiring National Park to hike onto a glacier. We were out of the holiday park by 7:45 AM and on our way with the sun in our corner. Unfortunately, the last 20 km of the road was a dirt road that we did not feel the Camry was equipped to handle. So, we called off the dream of hiking a glacier and headed back to town for some breakfast before we were to drive to Dunedin.