The weather forecast for today was for rain and for once the men at the Met Office - yes, it’s called that here too - were spot on. So with all that rain kicking off we had a lie in and set off late in the morning.
More by accident than planning we ended up in Arrowtown, hailed in the guidebook as a quaint, historic ex mining town with lot of lovely old buildings. In a way that’s correct but the high street looks like something from an American theme park. The old buildings all have lovely fresh paintwork and house gift shops and cafes of every description and, because it was raining, it was mobbed. We crawled along the high street in our van, dodging tourists eager to avoid the rain, then beat a hasty exit.
Once back on route we passed the AJ Hackett (the guy who invented bungy jumping) bridge then wound our way through a gorge where some of the Lord of the Rings River Anduin scenes were shot towards the town of Cromwell, another historic town.
Cromwell ‘historic precinct’ was in the centre of town by the lake shore and, as the name implies, was pedestrianised. A brief look at the information board showed us more cafes and gift shops so we left there pledging to ignore all future historic towns. I guess they’re no different from Clovelly or Corfe but not something we need to travel half way around the world to visit.
After stopping in the cafe of a garden centre (very English), for hot choccy, cakes and catching up on the internet, we headed off to the Merino Wool Shop. As it was in a tiny village in the middle of nowhere but marked on the map Glenn was expecting a large discount barn with all types of Merino clothing. Instead it was a small, up market boutique type affair with prices to match. We didn’t stay long there either. Although we did learn of a Merino sheep called Shrek who seems to be a NZ legend. More investigation needed there on another rainy day.
With the rain still falling we arrive at our final destination - the town of Wanaka. A smaller, classier version of Queenstown. As the rain had eased a little we serviced the van at the best dumpstation of the trip so far - well done Wanaka - then travelled to our freedom campsite, a few miles away, for an early night. On the way we passed a commercial campsite on the lake shore that was absolutely mobbed. It was so busy it looked like a refugee camp.
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| The lovely lake side campsite |
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| The biggest of the NZ big things we've seen - fruit at Cromwell |
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| The refugee camp |
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| Our freedom campsite on arrival, the weather has improved! |
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