After the excitement of our heli hike we drove along the West Coast down to Haast and the Haast pass. We had originally planned to stay a night in Haast to break up the journey, but lost that day for the rearrangement of the heli hike. On our way to Haast we made a stop at Knights Point Lookout, which showed us views over the Tasman Sea.

After the lookout we carried on driving through Haast Pass, stopping often to taken pictures of the breathtaking scenery. The views we were seeing now were the typical views you expect of New Zealand and we were not disappointed. We made 2 other stops on the way. The first was at Thunder Creek Falls, which was such an impressive waterfall and the second was at the Blue Pools. I definitely recommend both of these if you are passing through that way.

Eventually, we saw Lake Wanaka, but Wanaka town is actually located on the Southern side of the lake, so we still had a way to go. We followed along Lake Wanaka for a while and then the road took us alongside Lake Huwea. Both beautiful. We made it to Wanaka quite late and we decided to just settle in and have some dinner before bed.

The next morning we headed into town to do some food shopping. This supermarket is the most expensive New World in New Zealand because of the distances the food has to travel to make it to this store. Great! We actually didn’t notice that much of a difference when buying our shop though. Phew. The afternoon was dedicated to exploring. We walked a short distance up the road to Rippon Winery, had a wine tasting, enjoyed the scenery and then drank half a bottle of wine (Osteiner – one of 2 places in the World that grow this grape) and ate a cheese board in the sun. Perfect!!

We then walked along Lake Wanaka back into town past the famous ‘Wanaka Tree’. This lone tree was made famous by a National Geographic Photography Competition a few years back and is now the most instragrammed and hash tagged tree in the world (apparently). I couldn’t help but feel sorry for the tree, but it was interesting to see.

The rest of the afternoon we walked around the town, enjoyed the views of the lake and just got a feel for Wanaka. A lot of people have told us that they prefer Wanaka to Queenstown, saying Wanaka is more like Queenstown used to be. We were really enjoying our time there, but there still isn’t a huge amount in the town and I couldn’t imagine living there as the distances between places is so great.

The next day we had originally planned to walk up to the summit of Roy’s Peak. A lot of people told us it was one of their favourite views during their time in New Zealand, but because the weather was a bit iffy we decided to pass this time and save it till our next trip (there will definitely be a next trip). Instead we visited a Lavender Farm which Simon thought would be super lame, but actually agreed that he’d been wrong about. The views from the farm were amazing and we enjoyed a pot of tea and some lavender chocolates before deciding what to do with the rest of our day. They also had some lawn games which we enjoyed being competitive over. I won connect 4, Simon won boules.

The weather was no where near as bad that afternoon as the morning had been and we decided to hire some mountain bikes for 2 hours and ride around the Eastern side of the lake to the mouth of the river. The views were simply stunning so we took loads of photos, had a ride on the tree swing and just enjoyed the ride. A highly recommend renting a bike in Wanaka and now we are in Queenstown I would also recommend it for here, even though we don’t have the time.

That afternoon we had to drive the car to charge the fridge battery, which has become a bit of an annoyance for us when we have been parked up in one city or town for a while. Oh well.. we can’t complain about the views while we drive. They’re just to die for!

The next day we were going to be doing about 4.5 hours of driving down to Te Anau, but before we left we had a chance to have lunch with the Danish couple we met in Franz Josef. The restaurant was amazing, Simon said his burger was brilliant (he is a burger connoisseur) and I had a fry up (getting them in before we go to Asia). We had a lovely few hours chatting with them and was sad to say goodbye. Hopefully we’ll see them again in the future!