LAKE WANAKA — 14th March, 2021

No driving today. Tonight will be our second night in Wanaka.  We are looking at making that three nights to have a good break. Did a load of washing before we took of for a walk down to town. The camp is up the hill a bit behind Wanaka so good walking down but harder on our return. We walked just over 6km there and back. We are getting some long walks in so that’s all good. Spent some time down town just wandering around. Brilliant weather but quite a strong wind but not cold. It would be too hot without the wind. After struggling back up the hill we had lunch, and putting our bed back together after the big wash. Once it’s made up it’s good as I have mentioned earlier it’s just a push of a button to bring it down from the roof at night and back up in the morning. We have had a nice afternoon just pottering around in camp catching up on a few things and shortly be going down to the lounge to cheer the boys on in the sailing. Although we believe there I isn’t much wind in Auckland so it might not even be on.  I will finish the blog later this evening. Just going to sit outside in my deck chair an have a coffee in the sun. 😎

This is our van this morning when the sun was just coming up over the hills. The holiday park is quite a lot higher up into the hills from the town. The hills behind us don’t look very high but from down town they are extremely high.

Sun fully up now taken when we got back from our walk. This is another area of the holiday park. It’s very well presented and lovely trees throughout. I would say this is the best park we have stayed in.

Now down on the foreshore of Lake Wanaka. Looking  west.

Looking east. Sun still isn’t very high.

Mountains looking up towards the northern end of the lake.

Zoomed in to the mountains. A bit of snow can seen. 

I think I mentioned yesterday that there was an A&P show in town Friday and Saturday when we arrived.  This morning they were packing up the show and had taken their horses down to the lake for a swim. They weren’t too keen about going in. It must have been very cold for them. The photo doesn’t actually show any horses in the water out up to their necks but they were there and the above ones in this photo were waiting their turn. Poor things.

Lovely big weeping willow on the beach.  Love the different contrasts of colour. Sky, water, tree, and sand.

Above and below the cafes and bars along the lakefront.

Looking down the main steet of the town.

Had to take this photo Vauxhall Cresta 1957. We brought PT’s  Pops 1956 model which was a Vauxhall Velox,  similar when we were first married. We paid $200 for it and two years later we sold it for $100.  It was me that had it each day to drive myself down to work at the ANZ Milford branch for two years before we could afford to buy something better. Gears on the steering wheel, bench seat and all that luxury. Flash. Those were the days when housing loans were about 21%!!!!!!

Walking back up the hill to camp we were getting tired and hot after walking about 6kms down the hill, around town then back up the hill. 🥵 I love the neatness of the South Island streets, homes and gardens. Puts Auckland to shame. Beautiful trees. Just to early for the autumn leaves,  still too warm.

Fabulous homes. This one looks fairly new but they haven’t developed the gardens yet. There are some really beautiful homes and gardens, nice fluffy green grass. The same in Christchurch and many more areas. This house was just out of town just down the road from our camp.

Second night in Wanaka and we have decided to have a third tomorrow.  They say that rain might come in tomorrow but hopefully we can take the van out to adventure further out of town. After our walking all morning we had a quiet afternoon around camp. Sat down in the lounge from 4.00pm waiting for the yacht race which didn’t happen then went back to the van to cook dinner. Nice and relaxing especially for PT a day from driving.