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Still catching up! On Friday, we had probably the most scenic and enjoyable drive of the trip so far - Haast Pass to Queenstown, via Wanaka. The weather was glorious, more clear blue skies and sunshine, but pleasantly cool. We stopped at Thunder Falls Creek waterfall, Haast Gorge, and The Blue Pools, as prompted by our GPS Tourism Radio station, each place more stunning than the last. When we stopped at Lake Wanaka Boundary Creek, it was the bluest and clearest water of all. We had lunch beside the lake, and the more we looked at the sparkly blue water, the harder it was to resist, so once we had checked with the Ranger that it was safe to swim in (and that there were no eels!) we braved the chilling 9 degree temperature for a quick swim (well, plunge and shriek in my case!) much to the amusement of some other picnickers. Literally about 1k further on, we came to Lake Hawea, which was even bluer, and with more reflections than the previous lake - incredible.
We reached Wanaka, and were a bit shocked to find it really crowded with people and traffic, cars parked everywhere, down by the lakeside and all over the grass. There was some kind of a county show going on, and as we didn't want to get stuck in our first NZ traffic jam, we kept on driving. We reached Cardrona, with its 'Old Hotel' (which looks like a tiny old English pub) and 'Old Store' (which looks like a tiny village shop) and that's all there is, and sat in the hotel beer garden eating an ice- cream in the evening sunshine. It's hard to imagine that in a few months time the area will be covered with snow and packed with thousands of people who come each year for the skiing!
After that we went to a place called Arrowtown, which was a mistake, as it was very touristy, but all the shops were shut apart from a very expensive corner shop where we bought some supplies, and then ended up getting a bit lost, driving round in circles. We ended up missing the turn off for Shotover, where our campsite was (probably called that because everyone misses the turning!) and drove right into the middle of Queenstown - nightmare! All the hype about it being the skydiving and Bungy jumping, whitewater rafting and jet boating centre of NZ and probably the world, make this a really hectic place and we felt a bit shell shocked being in the middle of it all after all the wide open spaces and tranquility of the last two weeks. (Tony has made a point that there hasn't been much tranquility INSIDE the camper van and that I'm slowly driving him insane!)
We eventually found our way out of Queenstown and located our campsite, looking forward to getting well away from civilisation again in the morning, as we would be heading for the wilderness of the Fiordlands and Milford Sound.
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