Wanaka is in a very good spot by Southern Alps in an intersection of roads from Mt. Cook to Queenstown, to Te Anau, and to Glaciers. And itself it is a wonderful destination. It lies by a big ice age Lake Wanaka and very close to another big lake Waimeia, surrounded by mountains, and if you drive juts couple kilometers form it by the lake- ￂﾠyou will see Mt. Aspiring with its glaciers surrounding its peak! but only on a sunny day, which is not every day! So we drove to that directions and managed to see Mt. Aspiring in the morning, then clouds embraced it and that was it, we never saw it again:
We stayed in a cabin in Wanaka Kiwi Holiday Park and Motels ￂﾠ-and it was wonderful! We were surrounded by vans, which is a very popular way of travelling here, there was a very big kitchen, even two of them. there was a very clean heated bathroom with music all day and night long, there was a sauna and hot tubs and a little herb garden by the kitchen saying: eat us! The “van travelers” are quiet, so we had a good time! there were even two chairs and kind of a table in the cabin for us to work on PC’s.ￂﾠ
Some of the vans here look like this:
The day we had in Wanaka was unusually good – it was mostly sunny and for joy for joy – no wind! Just fantastic for climbing a mountain. Which we did. Here on the South island unlike the North island people who work at the reception desks are not so formal (that is my experience, others may have experienced differently) and they give advice how to best use your time. So we drove to Diamond lakes trail. the drive was short – only 17km, which was appreciated :-), and the trail was fantastic! To me it was the best rail we did here. But it was a lot of climbing up and up and up, comparable to Angels Landing or Observation Point trails in Zion Park. ￂﾠAnd some parts of the trail we as much scary as the above mentioned trails :-). Scary for me and some other Chinese ladies as we met on the trail. But there is a loop on the top – you can climb the top part of the mountain either from the west or from the east ￂﾠ-the East one is like Angel’s Landing train ￂﾠ- goes on a very narrow ledge on a steep part of the mountain, and the West part goes on a much more wide path up – like to Observation point :-). ￂﾠThe mountain is called Rocky Mountain. You can choose to reach only the Diamond lake (easy walk):
Almost the only single flower we saw on the trail :
You can choose to climb higher on comfortable stairs and path to a Wanaka lake viewpoint and sit there for a while:
This girl with blue hair is from Us, but she lives in Australia for 6 years because there the wages a so much higher! That is all we managed to exchange opn a short stop :-):
Those plants are form a family of ferns. but very harsh and sharp, specific to this trail, so to be honest and precise, I have to share them with you:
And ten we climbed the Rocky mountain from the West and went down from the East. The tiny dots on the right side high up on the slope – are people:
There were some three sheep grazing under the rocks:
Then two sheep sleeping under another rock:
One more view of Mt. Aspiring, but already in the clouds:
A girl meditating on the peak :
And here we reached the peak, at last, in 2.5 hours! :
There is a beautiful river mouth seen form above, with a little bridge that we will go later to see from close by:
And after spending half hour on the top and enjoying it a lot! (who wouldn’t ￂﾠ -there was no wind, no biting flies, no fierce sunshine, just perfect air), we went down in 1 hour. Here we often see such black tree trunks, they look like burned, but in reality they are being eaten by fungus, a veryￂﾠdisgusting and bad one:ￂﾠ
This is a healthy tree, I can’t stop admiring how big they grow here:
Evidently farmers raise deer in their pastures:
And they have really neat and bright tractors, as all of New Zealand- ￂﾠneat, modern and colorful:
Bye bye Wanaka, going towards Glaciers, diving into the clouds and rain:
Lake Waimeia:
Very interesting tops of the mountains – like saw teeth! 🙂
From this spot we could have seen Mt. Aspiring, but…