Wanaka - wanna stay?

Oh yes, I took a side trip to see some veined boulders...

View more photos 

Arrived into Wanaka on a gloriously bright day looking at a lovely calm lake with the mountains reflected in the mirror like lake in the furthest edges, with the closest edges in permanent ripples where people were diving/playing in the lake.

So having pulled (minorly) a muscle on the last hike in Mount Cook, I decided it was a day off with a gentle stroll around the lake and the town - it really is a beautiful place to stay, in summer at least!

Anyway decided to go for a longer walk the next day, this time taking a gently hill walk, in preparation for a mountain day walk the following day, all to prove I was up to the full day Glacier hike 2 days after the mountain walk :-D.

Part way along the hike, beautiful day, great scenery and I wasn't in my hiking boots as it was a laid track (basically gravel like) except in a few places.

Not a bad view, considering it was a supermarket carpark!

View more photos 

Forgetting I wasn't in my boots, I merrily walked along thinking "this is the life" when I started to slip - but my foot out to stop myself (with walking boots on I would be ok) and took part in the newest pastime/sport of ankle sliding, this is where you "ride" your ankle to the bottom of a slope, points are awarded for grace (4 for me) distance travelled (Would guess about a 7 here) and skin removed from leg (9) so I scored a 20/30 - must do better next time......

The problem is, I don't think this "sport" will take on as a willing participants may be few and far between, although as I sat at the bottom I thought 2 things 1 - I should remember when I am wearing walking boots and more importantly, when I am not and 2 - thank god there are no sand flies in this area...

The upshot of this is that there will be no all day Glacier hike, I can't imagine wearing ice shoes for 8 hours and hiking up a mountain, but I have exchanged it for a heli hike (only 3 hours and no uphill (well not much) hiking).

Its a hard life to live in this type of accomodation...

View more photos 

I have also found out that stone dust makes great sun screen, although I am not sure I can get people to take this up as paying customers unless Grey makes a BIG comeback in the seasons colours...

All in all, it just gives me a reason to come back and do a days Glacier hike another time and it gave me enforced time to catch up on all my journals, so there are good things coming out of it, even if I feel very lazy taking a heli hike, basically it dumps you at the top so you get to see all the great things as if you had hiked there, without the hiking...

So grounded in Wanaka, gave me plenty of time to identify things I would love to do here - canyoning etc, but couldn't this time.. so there is always another time; the good news for you guys is there are very few photographs since I wasn't feeling up to hiking long distances etc - flip flops were the only shoes I could wear to start with, so not really hiking shoes....

Anyway, I am not sure if tourism has embraced NZ or if NZ embraced tourism, but they certainly know how to make the most of the tourists money here, based on all the activities you can try, well you could end up spending a small fortune here...

Oh yes, one thing I don't think I have mentioned is that I think I was born to be a Kiwi (the people not a small brown bird..), my dad, when I was young, used to spend his time telling me to put shoes/slippers etc on when he saw me barefoot.

Here shoes appear to be an optional accessory for people when in their leisure gear (90% of the time) so much so that you really need to be careful not to catch the person in front of you at the supermarket with your trolley, as it may not be the heel of their shoe you catch, just their bare foot.

Anyway, as I said, very limited photos can be found here...