Monday 2 December 2013
Wanaka
Last week my wife and I celebrated our wedding anniversary by taking a few days off in the lakeside town of Wanaka in the South Island. The weather was unexpectedly delightful. As is our wont, we spent a lot of time walking during the day and refueling at night.
We arrived on Tuesday. In the evening we walked through the town to Iron Mountain and walked up it (it's small). On Wednesday we ascended Roy's Peak. That walk has a 1200 metre elevation change but the views are definitely worthwhile. On Thursday we drove out to Mt Aspiring National Park through Matukituki, to do the Rob Roy Glacier walk. This is a really beautiful walk, through pasture, into the bush, up the Rob Roy valley, emerging in an alpine meadow at the head of the valley with stunning views up the mountain-face to the Rob Roy glacier --- snow gleaming in the sunshine, and about a dozen meltwater waterfalls streaming down the face. On our last day we drove out to Haast Pass and then back to Queenstown.
The whole area is very beautiful. It's quite special to sit by the lake and watch people sailing, swimming and fishing, surrounded by ice-capped mountains. The Department of Conservation's Mt Aspiring activity centre is in Wanaka and well worth a visit. The number of day walks and multi-day tramps in the region is just staggering; there must be a couple of dozen different huts. No wonder the town is beseiged by tourists :-).
