Walking and Driving.. All I Ever Do Anymore!

   What a crazy day I had Saturday! Sunday was much more chill. We drove most of the day. We had to get to Wanaka, which was about 3 ½ hours away, and do all we wanted to do there. So, we woke up early, made some breakfast in the van, and got on our way. We drove to the Fox Glacier, which was just 20 minutes down the road. We didn’t have time to walk to the glacier, unfortunately, so we just drove as close as we could get. If only we had more time!

Perfectly exposed forest...

And perfectly exposed glacier.

   We kept on driving, and stopped at Lake Matheson along the way. It’s also called the reflection lake, because it reflects Mt. Cook so perfectly when the weather is good. It was beautiful, even though the water wasn’t totally still!

Our walk through the rainforest!

The Reflection Lake with Mt. Cook on the right.

   From Lake Matheson we carried onto Wanaka. The drive there was SOSOSO beautiful. We were winding through the Southern Alps the whole time, along a river until we ended up at Lake Wanaka. The views were incredible! We would be driving through forest, then it would clear and we would see huge mountains in front of us! Wow! After following Lake Wanaka a ways, we then made it to Lake Hawea and followed that for a bit. It was so pretty to see huge mountains across the lakes. We eventually made it to Wanaka, after crossing back over some mountains from Lake Hawea to Lake Wanaka. Such a beautiful town!

Sheep and mountains. Typical.

Cows don't belong on the road!

A cool turnout we stopped at. Like another world!

Look at that snow line!

Looking one way...

...and the other...

...from our ugly van!

I'm in love.

75 kilometres per hour, not miles!

   Mt. Iron is a little rocky knoll carved out by glaciers in Wanaka. It’s surrounded by a valley and eventually mountains all round. The view from the top is incredible, so Thomas and I wanted to hike it while we were in Wanaka. The walk is supposed to take about an hour and a half return, but it took us much longer because we stopped to take so many photos! The walk started right in town, wound up the knoll, and took us back down the other side. It was so muddy and snowy the whole walk up! The view from the top was definitely incredible though. We could see for miles in all directions, and it was so cool! We planned our journey so that the sun set while we were on top of Mt. Iron. Seeing the sun set over the mountains was so pretty. We booked it back down to the van afterwards – it gets cold after the sun goes down! The moon was still almost full, and was so astonishing.

On our way up!

The shadow of Mt. Iron! So cool!

<3

Watching the sun set atop Mt. Iron.

This is only half of what I could see 

   We found a holiday park to camp at for the evening in Wanaka, since we needed to plug in for heat. We hung out for a bit before getting ready and going out to dinner to celebrate my upcoming birthday. We had the yummiest pizza and beer at a little Italian restaurant – the perfect way to celebrate!

   Thomas was scheduled to fly out of Queenstown just as Mum was arriving on Monday afternoon... perfect timing! I wouldn’t have to be alone for too long! So Thomas and I woke up early Monday, packed up, cleaned up the van, and drove to Queenstown. It only took about an hour, but we stopped a few times along the way. It was such a gorgeous drive! All the driving we’ve done has been through absolutely breathtaking scenery.

   We got to Queenstown, got petrol, and went to McDonald’s like we did just about every day! We took advantage of McDonald’s free wifi as much as possible : ) We dropped off our Jucy van at the rental company, and it was so bittersweet! It was good to be rid of the big, ugly, bright van, but sad that our adventure was over! Thomas and I then went to the airport. I saw him off at 3ish for his flight back to Auckland.

   Mum’s flight from Sydney was supposed to arrive at 3:30, but I didn’t see her until almost 5! It was so good to finally see her! Her luggage had been lost somewhere along the way, so she had to talk to some airport people to try to figure it out. They had no idea when it would arrive, but we would have to hang out in Queenstown to pick it up. We picked up our rental car, then drove to our backpackers and got settled. It was a cute little hostel, but it was so busy! Queenstown is a huge skiing city, so a lot of people were in town to enjoy the new snow.

   Mum and I both wanted a good dinner, so we drove around the city a bit before stopping at Speight’s Ale House for dinner. We sat next to a warm fireplace, the food was delicious, and it was good to be with Mum after so long. Both of us were exhausted, although I’m sure Mum was way more tired than me after flying for a couple days! We headed back to our hostel and turned in for an early night.

   I had such a fun time with Thomas in the van, and it flew by! I hope traveling with Mum doesn’t fly by too! We’re supposed to hang out in Queenstown, see Te Anau and Fiordland, go to Invercargill and Dunedin, then fly up to Auckland before flying back to Wellington for a few days. It seems like such a long time to be traveling!