New Zealand Week 2

From Tekapo I drove back down south, along Highway 8 to Wanaka, which is situated north of Queenstown. Once again, the town is situated on the edge of a lake, surrounded by mountains. The weather was a lot better there than in Tekapo, with the sun shining and hot enough to wear shorts again!

On the way to the town I drove past a Transport and Toy Museum, so I thought it rude not to go in and have a look around. They had an impressive collection of old cars and toys from history.

The hostel was nice, another YHA one, with the front room looking over Lake Wanaka, and a TV room that showed a film each night. I was sharing the room with the chap who cleaned the place, so our room was extra clean! I started the following day with the best cup of coffee that I've experienced so far from a cafe that is renowned for its excellent drinks, but horrendously slow service. I drove the short distance to Mount Iron (in hindsight I should have walked), climbed to the top and then down via the scenic route. This 'mountain' was only 550m high, so technically not a mountain at all, I'm starting to wonder if they just call all their hills 'mount'...nevertheless, I chalk it up as another successful mountain ascent.

From there I wandered down to Stuart Landsbrough's Puzzling World, which was pretty awesome, starting off with the world's first 3D maze, which took me about 90 minutes to actually get out of. Then there were various illusion rooms which were all pretty impressive.

I managed to watch the Packers reaching the Super Bowl on the internet, meaning that I couldn't leave until midday, driving up to Franz Josef on the west coast. Long and difficult drive, with some excellent views to be had...unfortunately I was unable to enjoy them as I had my eyes fixed on the bumpers of various buses and campervans that were crawling up and down the winding hills. Still, it made a change from driving along straight, deserted roads in the countryside where the only thing to do is count sheep, and that's not advised whilst driving, for the obvious reason...

Franz Josef village was small and full of tour operators, offering flights above the glaciers and mountains. I chose, however, to simply walk the 10km to the edge of the glacier. Again, the hostel was top notch, a 5 star YHA hostel with its own sauna (that I didnt use). I was planning on going back down the 20km stretch of highway 6 to Fox Glacier, but that small stretch of drive had been so traumatic the previous day that I didnt bother.

Drove another couple of hours up the coast to Greymouth, an old industrial town/port, where there is pretty much nothing to do. Luckily I booked myself in for 2 nights! The hostel itself is excellent again, a weird African style place, but my first night in New Zealand that wasn't in a bunk bed! I drove along to Lake Brunner ("the fastest growing tourist destination on the West Coast"), which hadn't grown very much by the looks of it. Found a nice little 9 hole golf course to pass the time, despite being below average at the game itself.

Heading cross country to Christchurch tomorrow.