Wanaka, Queenstown, and Te Anau

A panorama of the view from the town of Wanaka. You can see a storm in the middle of the picture (click on it to enlarge).

As we drove away from the perpetually waterlogged West coast, the clouds and rain disappeared and we were treated to some fine summer weather. Our first stop was Wanaka, a small town nestled in what used to be a gold mining area. The gold rush in NZ occurred around the same time as the one in the States, and many towns just dried up when it was over. A few, like Queenstown, hung on and eventually came back to life via the tourist industry.

Wanaka is sort of up-and-coming as a tourist destination but still retains its small-town charm (Queenstown, while gorgeous, has been taken over by the tourists).

Amelia checking out some of the locals in Wanaka.

We spent two days relaxing in Wanaka and soaking up the scenery before making the short drive to Queenstown. Most people who visit NZ make a beeline for this place because it's located on the edge of a pristine lake surrounded by impressive mountains. It's the adventure capital of the country and it's where bungy jumping was invented. All day long you can hear the roar of jetboats and watch people parasailing. I'd recommend this spot to anyone visiting the country but we stuck to the less adventurous stuff because of the kids.

It was while we were in Queenstown that Quinn developed his still-present habit of helping to push the stroller. This slowed us down a bit, so we tried to carry him instead. He explained that this was a poor idea and we eventually explored the entire town like this:

Quinn literally walked about 2.5 miles like this before giving up.


Amelia and Amy posing with the founder of Queenstown. He was a gold miner and he must have liked sheep.


Quinn at the Queenstown botanical gardens.


Quinn posing with a really big tree at the botanical gardens.


By this point we had been on the road for a few weeks. It was fun watching the kids adapt to living in a van; they didn't seem to notice that anything was amiss. Amelia got quite creative and decided to make a tuba out of our water hose:




Quinn checking out the lake with the Remarkables (the local mountain range) in the background.


Me and the kids at the lake with the botanical gardens and the Remarkables behind us.

After Queenstown we headed towards Fijordland. As you may have gathered from the name, Fijordland is a big area in the southwest part of the South island which is made up of fijords. It's kind of weird looking at it on a map because there's only one road in the entire area, and no towns to speak of. When you finally make it into Fijordland you quickly understand why this is, but I'll save that for next time. Our last stop before heading into the wilds was a town called Te Anau. It's well known as the launching point for people heading into Fijordland, but it's beautiful in its own right. We camped that night at Lake Te Anau, watching storms blow across the other side of the lake. It was astounding being practically alone in such a setting.

Me and the kids playing with rocks at the edge of the lake.

Sunset at Lake Te Anau. Otherworldly.