This part of the world is pretty special. This statement is reasserted by the fact that two of our friends who have moved to New Zealand have ended up here. The drive to meet the other group in a pub called Cardrona was fairly eventful.
The roads were incredibly steep and, at times, I was genuinely concerned that with the three of us in the van, we wouldn’t make it to the top. It didn’t help that our SatNav didn’t seem to have a clue where this pub was and announced that we had arrived at our destination halfway down a very steep, cliff edge decline that I’m not sure my brakes would have allowed me to stop on even if I had wanted to try. To make matters worse, we had absolutely no signal so there was no chance of getting a location off the others, or even letting them know that we couldn’t find the place.
Luckily, the SatNav was way off base and, seeing as there was only one road through this mountain pass, it was actually impossible for us to miss our destination. We sped into town, almost missing the turning for their car park because we had no idea that we had arrived. Luckily we spotted it just in time and went haring round the corner into the gravel car park.
The inside of the pub was really cool. It had the feel of an old English country pub mixed with an American style saloon with the biggest pub garden I have ever seen. We grabbed some drinks at the bar and then headed outside to find the others. It was a beautiful day and seemed a shame to waste it by staying inside. Martin was sitting with his friend, Rob, who had suggested the place and had driven his motorbike here, which would have been a considerably more fun journey than ours. The two of them had already got quite a way into catching up, and it was nice to meet another person from Martin’s past.
We spent about an hour in the pub, drinking and chatting and then it was time for us to move on. We still had a hell of a drive ahead of us, and a stir-fry to cook when we arrived at Wanaka. The road on the way was beautiful but our only planned stopped was just down the road at a place called Bradrona. This was an art installation that sought to raise breast cancer awareness. It was essentially a fence that had been hung with thousands of bras, and some were quite nice! We snapped a few shots and were on our way once more.
When we finally arrived at our camp, it was my turn to meet up with a friend. We set up our pitch and got to cooking the infamous stir-fry. As much as we had grown to love the Indonesian style instant noodles that you can buy in Aus and NZ, we never stopped resenting the amount of stupid, fiddly packaging they came with. This was further exacerbated when you were cooking for 8 people, not just the two we were used to. We quickly realised that we didn’t have any cookware big enough to contain the mega stir-fry we were creating, leaving Martin to cook the vegetables and meat in about six separate stages.
While we were mid-cooking, my friend Chris Bedford arrived. We had been to uni together and, although we speak often, we seemed to have a standing arrangement of seeing each other every two years since we left. He had recently moved to Wanaka from Queenstown and when we arrived in town had jumped on his bike to join us for a few beers.
With dinner served, almost entirely thanks to Martin as I am a horrible multitasker, we all sat around the camp catching up on life in the UK, living in New Zealand and life on the road. It was a lovely relaxed evening, and the stir-fry turned out to be really tasty! At around midnight, it was time for Bedford to head home and for us to go to bed, we had big plans for the morning, we had to go and see #ThatWanakaTree in all its glory.
The next day, while the rest of us lounged around and ate breakfast, Martin and Michael both went for a run. On their return, they both reported that #ThatWanakaTree was indeed, just a tree. But a cool tree, nonetheless. We all got dressed and headed into town to marvel at its glory, and also to appreciate the lake and its backdrop, which were significantly more impressive.
After admiring the tree, we decided to walk around the edge of a lake to a waterfall that we had spotted on Google Maps. The walk was about a 5km round trip and afforded us some great views of the lake and the town. We watched people sail, kayak and stand up paddleboard. There were also several fishing boat launch points and people out on the lake enjoying the glorious weather by driving around in their speed boats. After a long walk, we reached Waterfall Creek. Sadly the creek was so overgrown that the waterfall itself wasn’t visible. On the trail back, I left the others to enjoy a delicious looking afternoon tea at a fancy lakeside hotel, and I wandered off to meet Bedford.
As we ambled along the lakeside chatting away, he told me that he didn’t know this path existed. It was nice to travel to the other side of the world, meet someone who lives there and still be able to show them new things about the place they call home. The tourists perspective is a great way to gain a newfound appreciation for where you live.
We met Martin back at the van and decided to hit a sushi place for lunch. I’ve said it before, and I’ll say it again: the sushi in NZ is amazing. After we were done completely stuffing our faces, Bedford announced that ice-cream was required. There was an ice-cream shop that only existed in Queenstown and Wanaka that simply couldn’t be missed: Patagonia. We went for a double scoop cone, I chose dulce de leche, and chocolate with nuts and Martin chose ICE-CREAM FLAVOURS. Bedford was right; the ice-cream was insanely good.
We met the others by the lake intending to rent kayaks, but sadly they were all out on the lake for the next hour. We convinced them all to go and get themselves an ice-cream and then we decided to head to the pub to spend our last hour in Wanaka enjoying the chilled vibes.
When we had finished our pints, the other van decided to start making a move to the next campsite, this was approximately a three-hour drive away so not crazy far, but enough that they wanted to be able to spend as much time as possible at the viewpoints. This drive would take us past Mount Cook, several glaciers and some of the most beautiful lakes in the world.
Martin and I hung around in Wanaka for a little longer. We initially wanted to meet G, Beford’s girlfriend who he had moved to the other side of the world with when she finished work. We had also been informed that our New Zealand experience wouldn’t be complete without a dip in the freezing cold lake. Now, I hate to admit that other people are right, but our swim in the lake was actually very refreshing and good fun, I even decided that it was okay to put my head under the water.
We dried out on the beach by the lake and listened to the tales of Bedford’s and G’s trip down from Auckland to Queenstown, where they had been living until a few days before. They had cycled the whole way which made us pretty jealous, although we had loved our van, we also loved to cycle and had some big trips planned for the coming year with an emphasis on not flying so much. We hadn’t realised how easy it was to cycle the length of the country; otherwise, our plans may have significantly changed.
Eventually, it was time to get a move on and get going to meet the others at Lake Tekapo. We bade farewell to Bedford and G with a promise that we wouldn’t have to travel so far in the next two years to have our scheduled meet up. We climbed in our van and hit the road.
