Land of Lakes and Mountains

Trip Start Jul 24, 2007
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Trip End Nov 11, 2007


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Saturday, October 13, 2007

It was an amazing drive from Franz Josef to Wanaka today - we stopped at a place called Wolf Creek which is a beach area renowned for being home to the hector dolphin which is the smallest dolphin in the world - we did actually see one jumping about in the water but it was for a split second so if you'd blinked you would have missed it!! and if I hadn't known that was what we were looking for I would have thought it was a fish!!! We also stopped at a place called Thunder Falls which was a 26 metre waterfall which was pretty spectacular. The Japanese tourists were out in force today so taking pictures was done pretty quickly as standing room near the falls was under pressure which was a shame because that would have been a nice spot to have lunch.

So no-one jumped off the waterfall today - just because you couldn't get to the top I think. There's quite a dramatic change in scenery from the west coast where its sub tropical rain forest, beaches and the odd glacier to the inland mountainous gorges of the Southern Alps and then down the west side of the alps where all the rain forest disappears to be replaced by green valleys and sheep again! Lake Matheson
Lake Matheson
 !

Wanaka is a smallish ski town - bigger than Franz Josef but not by much. I thought that Wanaka was much prettier than Franz Josef but maybe thats because I could actually see the scenic backdrop and the huge Lake Wanaka which looked stunning.

We went for a Mexican meal in a little place called Cafe Amigos which was pretty nice. Dunno if you have noticed how rude American's are - I hadn't before spending time with some on this trip! Carter one of the guys on the bus came to the restaurant with us and was so rude to the lady who was serving us - "please" and "thank you" don't seem to be in the american vocabulary they just expect everything to be done for them - I did have to say something to him just because his rudeness was making me feel uncomfortable and I'd had a glass of wine so I wasn't subtle - the american excuse is that they aren't "brought up" the same way as everybody else in the world. Manners aren't taught in the states - no doubt another one of George Bush's great ideas.

We didn't arrive in Wanaka til late afternoon and we left again at 8am the next day which has been one of the frustrations of this trip with Kiwi - although its great to see so many places some of them deserve more time, at least a full day but the idea of Kiwi is that you hop on and hop off where you wanna stay but that only works if you have loads of time. 5 weeks isn't really enough time for New Zealand other than to do a whirl wind tour. I have some extra time and I'm gonna be jumpin on and off down the very bottom of the South Island but I wish I'd had more time to do that in other places.
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