Wanaka of the week

Well, I can safely say that you lot are probably enjoying better weather than us, in the last week we’ve been rained on, snowed on, hailed on and had only a tiny glimpse of sunshine, still, can’t complain, I’ve been on holiday for nearly six months, you take the rough with the smooth, and it’s been mainly smooth so far.

From Queenstown we made our merry way up to Wanaka (be careful how you say that after a few pints) where we just stayed one night. Now this might sound odd, but the main reason we went was to go to the cinema. We’d heard so much about this place that we felt it was worthy of a visit, it was en route after all. Wanaka is a picture postcard little town on the shores of a big lake (it might even be called Lake Wanaka, Kiwis are inventive with names like that) and has a brilliant hostel called the Purple Cow. The cinema is just up the road and is famous (ish) for its laid back informal atmosphere. Instead of your usual fold-up pop-out crappy little theatre seats that you might find in your local Odeon, this place is kitted out with sofas, armchairs and a Morris Minor to sit in (that’s right, a Morris Minor). It’s like nothing we’d seen before, they serve really good food there as well which you can get before, during and after the film. If you fancy a drink you c n grab a beer at the bar at the interval or a bottle of wine and take it in to the auditorium with you-genius! We saw Lord of the Rings (yes I know I must be the only person in the world who hadn’t seen it months ago) but it was cool to see it after having spent some time in NZ, we went jetboating on the river where Liv Tyler gets chased by soem nasty looking chaps on horses, quite surreal really.

From Wanaka we got an Atomic Shuttle (budget minibus) up to Fox Glacier which set us back $40 (13 quid) to do a glacier walk which was amazing. As I said we haven’t been blessed with good weather, but in spite of the rain we did a 4 hour walk across the glacier with a very knowledgable and super-fit guide who, despite being about 85 managed to keep us on our toes-worrying. The scenery is stunning and I’m sure would be even more so in sunny weather, but I can safely say that a walk either on Fox or Franz Josef Glacier is an absolute must for any backpacker in NZ. We booked ours through the local tourist info place, but hostels will do it for you too, cost-about $45, worth every cent.

We’ve been in Greymouth for the last couple of nights-just about the most populated, lively town we could find for celebrating my birthday (thanks for the card guys at gapyear.com….arseholes) which was deserted and rather grim, but we had a cool time anyway. We stayed in a place called Neptunes which is possibly the best hostel we’ve stayed in over the last 6 months, so if you’re unfortunate enough to find yourself in Greymouth, pay a visit!

We’ve just arrived here in Nelson, our base for the next few days to see the top end of the south island (Abel Tasman National park etc) and then it’s off to Picton to get the ferry to the North Island. New Zealand has been fantastic so far, but we’re looking forward to some sunshine!!

Catch up soon,

Mark, Ollie, Owen and New Boy Neil