We started off hopefully this morning, with a grey cloudy sky but not actually raining. Our hostess said, ‘Oh it looks quite reasonable’, as I was thinking, ‘Oh it looks as if it’s about to pee down.’ I was right! It started as we got to the local lake and didn’t stop until we got to Wanaka. It was still a stunning journey, with waterfalls and rivers gushing at every turn, and of course, to make waterfalls you do need rain, so we couldn’t complain. There were again banks of ferns too, with tree ferns poking out of the top. So many varieties too, I didn’t know so many existed : some very familiar and others quite unknown. Sometimes the clouds and mist made the scene even more evocative but a lot of the time they did simply obscure the view. We’ll have to return some time!
We also saw herds of deer, as they are farmed around this area and I am looking forward to sampling some venison. The house being built was interesting because, to us, it seems so odd to have only all these wooden shack-like buildings, even on big ranch spreads, but look how easy it is to build and rebuild.
As we came down the other side of the mountains the weather started to clear and we got really good views of the two lakes, Wanaka and Hawea, which almost touch at one point, and are quite fabulous, huge and really blue, unlike a lot of the grey rivers that run off the Alps and the glaciers. It was sunny as we arrived here and people were complaining of the heat! I look forward to swimming in one of the lakes tomorrow. We walked along their very informative time line of the last 2 millennia path which runs along the edge of the lake, then retired for a glass of Merlot and to cook our own dinner in our first real self catering apartment.
Photos here.
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