To Queenstown via Wanaka
Trip Start
Sep 25, 2008
1
43
47
Trip End
Feb 05, 2009
Queenstown,
South Island,
New Zealand
Friday, November 21, 2008
Nevertheless, we intended to do a few things to break up the drive - the first being a beach walk to hopefully see some penguins. Unfortunately we managed to drive straight past this and so moved onto numbers 2 and 3 - Thunder Creek Falls and Fantail Falls - which were just a couple of minutes walk from the roadside.
The daunting-sounding Haast Pass over the Alps actually turned out to be a fairly gentle drive and we were surprised how quickly and easily we were able to reach the noticably drier grasslands of Otago on the far side of the mountains. Passing between two large lakes, we soon arrived in Wanaka, where we stopped for lunch by the lake.
After rejecting a brewery tour we'd planned for being a bit pricey, we opted for a free climb up Mount Iron which stood behing the town. The weather was strange - windy and mainly cloudy but still warm - and so the steep climb was hard work but certainly worth it for the views; the hill was right in the middle of a large flat plain but overlooked the mountains all around and the two lakes we'd passed.
Once down again (the whole thing took only about an hour and a half), we set off on the ninety minute final leg to Queenstown. We arrived around half five and, after consulting the i-Site, drove up the hill to a campsite. The place proved by far the priciest we'd so far experienced (and annoyingly they also charged for laundry and even showers!) but it was nice to be clean, freshen our clothes and plug in to some power for the van. We'd planned to go out in Queenstown the following night and so settled in for an early rise - full of trepidation for our skydive at 9:30 the next morning.
