In order to cross the Southern Alps from west to east, we had to take Haast Pass which is the lowest point along their length. As with a lot of NZ roads, there were lots of distractions such as waterfall walks and viewpoints along the way.
When we finally got to the other side of the Alps we were in Mt Aspiring National Park. The park has wide valleys and sheer mountains, most of which is only accessible by river. It was here that I (Angie) decided to go on a jet boat ride (Darren's budget not stretching to this at the mo'). Jet Boat rides are on offer all across New Zealand, and I'd been tempted to do one for a while. The Jet Boat (and jet ski) was invented in New Zealand and the basic concept is that they can go very fast in very shallow water. The jet boat I went in for instance, can travel at 80km per hour in only 4 inches of water. The 1 hour journey took us along 2 crystal clear rivers, and up to a pristine secluded meadow deep in the park. The park is used a lot for fishing and hunting. When I asked what they were hunting I was told Red Deer, Chamois (the goat from which chamois leather comes from) and Himalayan Thar (a kind of large hairy goat) - surely if it's a national park the wildlife is protected I protested, but apparently all 3 of these species are introduced and are pests to the natural flora. The main trade is from American Corporate Hospitality trips where people will pay up to US$6000 a day to hunt here! Our jet boat driver says he also has someone from the Russian Mafia that comes here every winter with 2 or 3 wives in tow...
On the return trip we were treated to some even faster corners, fancy steering and a total of five 360 degree spins. The first couple were quite thrilling, but after I got used to them I realised that what actually happened is that I got squashed up against the side of the boat from the weight of 4 other people if the rotation happened to be in one direction, flung down the seat and into the person next to me when it was in the other direction, and generously doused with water when the boat comes to a stop. I even managed to get my new camera soaking wet which wasn't very clever, but it dried out after a few hours and came back to life again - hurray!
We continued along the shores of Lake Hawea and Lake Wanaka to Wanaka itself, where we would be spending the night.
On arrival at our hostel the guy at reception told us that he had made a mistake and had double-booked the room we had reserved. He apologised and offered us a 4 bed dorm, all to ourselves, for $30 (that's 12 quid). Cashback! This made it the cheapest night's sleep in NZ yet, so we agreed, making sure we didn't look too pleased.
Wanaka is the home of the world famous Stuart Landsborough's Puzzling World. You may have heard of it...no? Well let me enlighten you. In the 70's Stuart and his wife decided to build a maze. Not just any old maze mind you, but a massive 3D maze (it has bridges as part of the maze as well). This has grown into a puzzling centre of excellence. The centre has four indoor areas: a hologram room; a hall with hundreds of faces that follow your every move; a section with floors and walls at a really steep angle so water appears to flow upstream and a snooker ball seems to roll uphill etc; and the classic illusion room where at one end you are a giant and the other a tiny wee person.
We saved the huge maze till last and I (Darren) was not as excited as Angie seeing as I don't really get much pleasure out of roaming around an area purposly built and designed to get lost in. However I was prepared to give it a go for our relationships sake. They said the maze takes the average person 1 to 1.5 hours and is designed to be fun rather than simply hard, and to be solved just before frustration sets in. The idea is that you have to find your way to all 4 corners of the maze (where there are different coloured towers) and then back to where you started, which is also the exit.
We started off well and found the first three towers within 20 minutes. We wondered what all the fuss was about and even I was almost enjoying it. However, the 4th tower took a lot more work, and I found it hard to feel that pleased when we finally limped up to it 20 minutes later. We set off to find the exit and toast our conquest with a nice cup of coffee. After another 15 mins of following Angie around in circles and getting shoved aside by groups of noisy schoolkids my frustration level was just about peaking so I decided to take the option of using one of the strategically placed emergency exits and cutting the 'fun' short. Angie did not want to get beaten that easily and carried on her quest. I sat in the courtyard in the centre of the maze and watched her wander almost aimlessly (she had a purpose after all, albeit a pretty unimportant one), crossing over the maze bridges once, then twice, then a third time. I thought about going in to put her out of her misery but then decided that I should just go and have that nice cup of coffee. She is not the sort to give up easily or without a struggle and I feared getting lost myself if I went back inside the maze. Eventually she appeared, a good hour and a half after entering the maze, slightly flustered and red in the face but happy having got her money's worth.
I (Angie) would just like to add that the maze almost reduced me to tears, but like childbirth is reputed to be, once it was all over I forgot the pain and just remembered to elation of seeing the result of my effort - in this case the exit sign.
The next day we drove out along the shores of the lake to a viewpoint of Mt Aspiring, the highest peak in this area, and with a name like that we couldn't resist doing a bit of a detour to see it. But the clouds were not to be our friends. Although it was a reasonably sunny day the high peaks in the distance were sporting white wooly hats and the view could really have aspired to be better. We watched a couple in a campervan rather optimisitically take a photo anyway, but as we had done this at Lake Matheson, decided not to repeat the experience here. We did get some nice shots over the deep blue lake at the nearer mountains though, so not a totally wasted drive.
Afterwards, we climbed Mt Iron, a typically anvil shaped hill, that was left behind after the last iceage. We did the path the easy way round - the gentler climb up, and the steep side down. There were splendid views over Wanaka and the lakes at the top, with birds of prey circling overhead.
More thumbnails ...
Wanaka Hotels
21 votes 
