Wanaka – New Zealand 30th January to 1st February

In the morning we shot off for yet another long drive, heading to Wanaka. After 4 hours we arrived to our YHA hostel, which actually looked really nice and had a huge kitchen. That evening we chose to go watch the sunset next to “That Wanaka Tree”, if you haven’t heard of it, it is basically an old willow tree that has survived in the lake, a picturesque spot made famous on social media. Unfortunately because of that reason, we were two out of probably a hundred people there taking pictures, but it was still something ticked off the check list of things I wanted to see in New Zealand.

The next day we wanted to do one of the many hikes around Wanaka, we decided we would do either Roy’s Peak, Isthamus or Rocky Mountain. The first two are really popular due to how high you get to, both being around 6-7 hours long, and Rocky Mountain being about 3 hours and only a third as high. I really wanted to do one of the longer ones, but that day was especially hot and said to break into mid 30s; so we thought it would be too forced to do a long climb and we would end up not enjoying it. Therefore we decided the smarter option would be to do Rocky Mountain, and to be fair it was hard enough. We had lunch at the top and admired the view over Lake Wanaka before heading back. After being all hot from the climb we thought it would be nice to swim in the lake back at Wanaka, it was refreshing and not as cold as I thought it was going to be. Once we got back to our hostel we were greeted by our new roommate – Ma, a middle aged Spanish women. We intended to go out quite quickly to grab some dinner but we ended up speaking with her for ages, as she was telling us all about her profession. She explained that she offers certain type of spiritual therapy, which is essentially acupuncture with lights. It was the most bizarre thing I had ever heard, but I was really intrigued by her story so kept asking more. Finally my hunger got the better of me, and we left to find dinner. We went to this Mexican restaurant, where we shared some nachos and I had a mixed grill which was delicious. All in all, I really enjoyed Wanaka. It wasn’t too big nor was there loads of shops/bars, but it was a gorgeous town and had a nice vibe to it.