The 1st stop was about a 15 minute walk in to see a waterfall. It was pretty nice to see, but to be honest it wasn’t as large as one we say about 5 minutes earlier along side the road, I wish we’d
have stopped to take a picture of that one. This fall had a river running in front of it which was pure aqua in color, so that made for interesting pictures. This stop was about 30 minutes into our drive.The 2nd stop was only about 10 minutes further along, this was another water fall, but the hike to it was negligible, about 5 minutes. This fall was a bit larger in height and there were a few more people gathered about looking at it.
Another 10 to 15 minutes down the road we stopped at yet another water fall which was also a 5 minute stroll through the woods. The trees here were massive compared to what we’d seen so far on the south island, I have no idea why they grow like that here and not anywhere else we’ve been. This was called the fan fall because the water fall fanned out as it came to the base and into the river. It wasn’t as high a drop as the previous one, but still pretty to look at. This was the last water fall we’d stop to see on this trip.
The 4th and last stop before getting into Wanaka was a hike that took us to the top of a peak in the mountain range we were driving through, it was about a 30 minute walk straight uphill to the top, it got the sweat flowing for the 1st time today. The view up there was pretty nice of the mountain range and valley we were driving through. The walk down that hill was about twice as fast as the walk up, for gravitational reasons. We were expecting an hour and a half walk here and ended up w/ the 45 minutes and felt slighted. Turned out that right across the street from
this hike was another marked hike that was supposed to go for an hour and a half, so we decided to stroll along that one. This was a nice level walk the only problem I was having is that they had recently trimmed the trail back and the walking path was littered with twigs and since I was wearing my Teva sandals I was getting twigs stuck into my toes all the time. This trail ended up w/ a decent view of the valley as well. From here we headed straight into Wanaka.We drove along three separate lakes coming into town, it had a very Tahoe feel to it with the mountain ranges in the back with snow caps. Coming into Wanaka gave the impression of driving into a small mountain town, probably a ski town in the winter. Right on the lake and probably about 3 square blocks for the major downtown area. We quickly found ourselves a hotel to stay at tonight, this is probably the best place yet, we have a full kitchen, a living room area (part of the one room, but a couch and TV separate) and a small patio area out back, it’s really nice. I kinda just wanted to relax here but the weather was absolutely perfect out and we couldn’t waste that not being outside, so we drove to the outskirt of town to what is known as Mount Iron which was supposed to be another hour and a half walk.
The first 45 minutes of Mount Iron were straight uphill, and with the sunshine beaming down on us it didn’t take long to start sweating again. The views from the top were stunning, you could
see all 3 major lakes with the mountain range backing. The other side was a spectacular view of the prairies with more mountains off in the distance.On our way back we swung into the grocery store to pick up some drinks and food since we have a full kitchen and plan to stay here two days, evidently our hike tomorrow is long and we’ll need to pack a lunch. The grocery store is about 50ft from our hotel, which is where I am right now writing this, now I think we’ll head out to find a pub with an internet connection and hopefully I can post this stuff since it’s been about 4 or 5 days since I’ve updated the damn blog.
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