day 39, 40, 41

Day 39


This morning we woke up to leave Makarora and head a bit further south towards Wanaka. It was a nice morning and we made a few stops along the way to look at the views out over Lake Wanaka and Lake Hawea. The clouds made for a beautiful background.

On the side of Lake Hawea was a large flock of Merino Sheep. A little different setting than in Vermont! The picture is taken looking down the embankment towards the lake, so they are set on a fairly steep hillside. There were hundreds of them, enjoying the day and some grass.

We continued our drive towards Wanaka, where we "hopped" off the bus. We had heard many great things about Wanaka and decided to stay here for 5 nights and relax and enjoy the town. We stayed at Wanaka Bakpaka, and it was a beautiful setting, overlooking Lake Wanaka. They also had some fun corragated metal hiking boots that John decided to try on for size.

They were a little bit big! The building you can see behind is the place that we stayed at. We spent the afternoon wandering around town and enjoying a cuppa at Andrea's new favorite coffee shop! They make great coffee too!

After dinner we went to the cinema in town. Everyone in town talks about the cinema as a must stop, so we couldn't miss out. We certainly were not disappointed. The seats you sit in to watch the movie are all couches and love seats. They say that whenever any of the residents in town get new sofas or loveseats, they bring their old ones down to the cinema and leave them outside the door. It was very comfortable! They even have 3 seats in an old bug you can watch the movie in!

We opted not to sit in these seats during the entire movie, they really weren't too comfortable. These are the other options of places to sit.

We watched Revolutionary Road. It was a pretty good movie, John loved it! As if it doesn't get any better than comfortable chairs, they have an intermission half way through the movie for you to take a break and enjoy some of their fresh baked cookies! Yummy!

Day 40

Cannot believe we have been here for 40 days already! Time is going by quickly, but things are going well. After some breakfast we headed a little bit out of town to go to Puzzling World. It is a building with many illusions and puzzles. This is a view of puzzling world from above. The large fenced in area is a big maze you can go through.

This is what the outside of the building looks like.

The leaning tower of Wanaka has a clock that started in 2000 and the time is going backwards! John is making sure that it doesn't fall over.

They also have Roman Style toilets.

Andrea is losing her balance, or is she?

This is a tricky room for sure, or is it two different rooms? Tall John and Short John.

After we spent some time inside we headed outide to go through the maze. There were 4 corners, red, blue, yellow and green. You had to make it to each corner, and once you got there you could go up the tower and have an aerial view of the maze. After you get to all 4 towers you have to head back to the start in order to get out. We made it up all 4 corners and getting out was the most difficult part.

But we did it!

After Puzzling World, we headed across the street to hike up Mt. Iron. It was a beautiful day and a nice hike that gave us incredible 360 degree views of the area.

Lake Wanaka and the town were on one side, an dthis is a view off the other side at Lake Hawea.

This is looking back at the town of Wanaka as it sits on the lake. Not a bad place to spend a few days.

The rest of the day we just relaxed and cooked some dinner. We ended up going to the cinema again and saw Grand Torino this time, it was a good movie!