Goodbye South Island

June 22 –

We woke up in a cozy campervan in the middle of glacier country in Franz Josef and headed southeast.

 We stopped by some beautiful lakes on our way to Wanaka, the first being mirror lake. The minerals in the lake helped reflect the beautiful mountains in the distance onto the water. We were there on a clear day but only went to the first lookout. We were on a  tight time frame (driving about 6 hours today) so we just wanted to get out of the car for a quick walk.

We drove through Mt. Aspiring National Park and it was such a beautiful drive! A lot of the Lord of the Rings movies were filmed in this part of the country. Jeff and I stopped at Thunder Creek – a huge waterfall in the park. 

After leaving the falls we started driving in SNOW again!! We had to drive through Haast Pass to get into Wanaka and the pass has been closed the past week but thankfully it was open the day we needed it to be! I felt like we were driving through a winter wonderland with the snow-capped mountains, beautiful trees, and snow lining the roads.

We then drove around Lake Hawea and stopped a couple times. This lake is awesome (and it stopped snowing) with all the majestic mountain around it makes it the best drive yet.

Last and final stop of the day was Lake Wanaka – probably one of my favorite spots in NZ. The town is a little ski town, the lake is very blue and has a great mountain backdrop. This town sprouted up after Queenstown became really popular – so more locals go there instead of the tourist and overprices town near by.

Jeff and I walked around, did some shopping of course, and went to Speight’s Ale House to watch  the final All Blacks game. It was a good one even though it was a wee bit close at times.

We then free camped on the side of the road outside of town. It was freezing! We woke up to a thick layer of frost on the windows the following morning!

what i slept in!

June 23 –Queenstown

We woke up way to early because our roadside campsite was a calling card for passing motorists. Apparently, when there is a camper on the side of the road, the kiwi thing to do is honk your horn at them. After 5 honks from separate cars, we were up and headed back into Wanaka. 

where we camped!

When we got into town, we were lucky enough to see the sun rise over the mountains that surround Lake Wanaka. The sky was pink and blue, which was gorgeous despite the frigid temperatures.

After sitting and watching the sunrise, we stopped by a little café for some hot chocolate, and got on the road to Queenstown, which was only about an hour drive. The coolest thing about Queenstown right now is that it is having a Winter Festival to celebrate the beginning of their winter months and ski season. The city was crawling with ski bunnies and snowboarders. People just carry their snowboards around town, even though there is no snow on the ground. It’s pretty funny to see.

We didn’t get to participate in all of the festivities of the winter fest because we had something a little different planned.

 At noon, we met 3 guys outside of a Subway shop, hopped in their van, and started driving to Coronet Peak, the local ski field. As sketchy as this might sound, we knew who the guys were, and they were taking us to the top of the ski field so that we could go PARAGLIDING! (Jeff and I didn’t tell anyone back home about it because we didn’t want you guys to worry.) 

SO we drove up the ski field in preparation for our flights, but the wind conditions were not conducive to flying, so we had to move to another site. After about an hour and a half of checking the wind conditions and relocating, we finally suited up. The flights were tandem, so Jeff and I each had an instructor attached to our back. When the wind got into our sails properly, they just had us run off the hill and off we went! The feeling was like none other. I screamed really loud when we took off, but after getting settled it was really cool to float through the mountain air and look out over the beautiful scenery. They also threw in some twists towards the end of our runs, which freaked me out. After we landed, they told us we could take another run because the new location was much shorter than any other site they launched from. So we said yes! And we did it again, and it was so much cooler the second time because we actually knew what we were doing.

More pictures to come!

After we were done, they dropped us off back in town and we set up Britzy for the night at our campground. Then we headed into town for some shopping and looking around, which didn’t take very long. Before long it was about 4:30 so we headed up the gondola to the highest point in town, so we could see the sun set over the mountains. Up top, they have a restaurant and bar, so Jeff and I got a bottle of wine and enjoyed each other’s company as we watched the sun paint the mountains every color imaginable. It was a very clear night, so it was stunning to see.

After the sun went down, we went back down into Queenstown for some delicious pizza at Winnies. It is my favorite restaurant here by far, and I am going to have to come back just to have their pizza. When dinner was over, very quickly because Jeff was hungry, we went to Cowboy’s. It is a ridiculously tacky bar that stereotypes everything about the American West, so it was funny to see what Kiwi’s think about people from Texas. We met up with a friend of mine, Lars, who happened to be in town as well. It was nice to catch up and have a few drinks before we turned in for the night. 

We fly to Auckland tomorrow, and then on the 25th, we will be back on our way to the States.