Wanaka Nature

While Wanaka and Queenstown are separated by mountains, together they are the heart of New Zealand’s outdoor activities. Both towns have a beautiful lakeside setting and are filled with hotels, restaurants, and stores ready to fulfill every outdoors activity one can imagine. Queenstown is the larger of the two and has become quite a nightspot in its own right. It is also the jump-off point for tours to Milford and Doubtful Sounds, two of New Zealand’s western fjords. Wanaka, where we stayed is a bit more sedate, but still offers beautiful scenery, access to outdoor activities of all types, some good restaurants, and two unique movie theatres.

On the way to Queenstown, the highway travels between the shores of Lake Wakatipu which curves past Queenstown into the foothills of the Southern Alps and the Remarkables, a mountain range that rises directly from the shores of the lake. From Queenstown, we had a choice of roads to Wanaka. The main highway is easier but also longer than the route we chose over the mountains. Even with a stop at the Wet Jacket winery, the drive only took a couple of hours up and down the mountainside to Wanaka. The Cardona ski area sits about halfway between the two cities supplementing ones closer to each city. We heard the pub at Cardona is excellent, but will wait for another day on that.

Wanaka sits on Lake Wanaka only a few miles from Lake Hawea. If one follows the highway from here for about 100 miles over those Southern Alps you will reach Haast. From there another 300 miles or so follows the coastline before turning inland and back to the Marlborough wine country at the north end of South Island. That is a drive for another trip. Even with two weeks on this island we are only seeing a small part of its wonder and beauty.

We did follow that road along both lake shores for about 40 miles as we headed to a short hike to see the Blue Pools. This hike is just a bit over a mile down and back to the confluence of the Makarora and one of its tributaries. The tributary floods yearly leaving gravel deposits and blue and turquoise pools of clear water for swimming and sunning on the rocks. Two suspension bridges offer excellent overhead views of the pools and a short trail takes hikers down to the pools. On a hot summer day, it’s hard to imagine a nicer spot to cool off after hiking in the nearby hills. We spent half an hour enjoying the scenery and watching a tomtit play in the trees before heading back up the hill to our car. Even though the weather was a bit cool, we saw a lot of hikers and several taking advantage of the swimming hole.

Tomtit

We stopped on our way back to town at a small cafe in the village of Makarora for a sandwich. This is one of those restaurants one finds in the mountains that caters to tourists, especially those on bus tours. One bus was there ahead of us finishing their meal. We watch one of the tourists finishing his five bowls of ice cream. He said he was having dessert so as not to spoil his afternoon tea (dinner). I don’t think any of his fellow passengers or the wait staff believed this explanation as we all marvelled at his ability to eat that much ice cream.

Lake  Wanaka

After lunch we headed out to Archangel for some wine tasting and then back to town to try out the Cinema Paradiso and compare it to the McMenamins theaters in the Portland area. Like McMenamins, Cinema Paradiso offers beer and wine and food for your enjoyment as you watch the movie from comfortable lounge chairs and sofas or the seat of an old car where you can reminisce about old-time drive in movie theaters. What makes this one unique is the halftime when the audience is invited to take a break with a fresh-baked cookie and some ice cream. I had a cookie but passed on the ice cream. Thor Ragnarok was only part of the fun. Wanaka offers another theater of distinction, Ruby’s Cinema and Bar. Ruby’s claims to harken back to the 1920s when attending a movie was an event. It also also offers alcohol in its sumptuous surroundings. We will have to try that one on another trip. There is so just so much to do and so little time.

While this isn't nature, it is seats from which to watch a movie.

We left the next morning for the long but continuously beautiful drive to Christchurch and our last stop in New Zealand. We were surprised to pass a number of salmon farms in the lakes and rivers along the way. These unusual freshwater salmon farms raise King Salmon originally imported from the Sacramento River in California. We stopped to look around at one before making a longer stop at the visitor center on Lake Pukaki where we had great views of Mt. Cook. The center had sashimi from one of the fish farms for sale so I bought a small package for lunch to eat on the shores of the lake. The cool mountain air and the beautiful views of Mt. Cook probably enhanced the flavor, but it was still some of the best salmon sashimi I have tasted. The cold glacial water must be working its magic on the fish.

Mt. Cook, New Zealand's Tallest Mountain

Fresh water salmon farm

David enjoying salmon sashimi for lunch

Also at the visitor center was a statue of a Himalayan Tahr, an animal I don’t remember hearing of. The Tahr were imported in the early 1900s in a successful attempt to induce world hunters to come to this area of New Zealand for some big game and spend some time visiting other parts of New Zealand in their travels. Beginning with the ‘liberation’ of eleven animals in 1904 and 1909, the herd grew to over 40,000 and damaging the ecosystem. A culling program reduced the herd to a size of 1000-2000 animals. Today, they are available for big game hunters and animals in excess of what is now recognized as a sustainable herd size of 10,000 are culled and sent to restaurants specializing in game meat. Listed as vulnerable in the Himalayas, New Zealand is today the only place in the world where they are available to thousands of local and international big game hunters contributing to the New Zealand economy and to the survival of these amazing animals.

Tahr, a successful import for hunting

Our last stop on this leg of our journey was the Church of the Good Shepherd on the shores of Lake Tekapo. This little stone church has to be one of the most photographed in the world. Not only is the setting one that might make you want to stay for Sunday service, Lake Tekapo is in the center of a UNESCO Dark Sky Reserve making it one of the best places to stargaze. Photographers of the night sky find the setting of the church just as alluring as do those of use who just have time to visit during the day. With that we drove the rest of the way non-stop to our hotel in Christchurch.