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Wanaka is a small town (large in New Zealand terms) surrounded by several lakes. It is a smaller version of the famous Queenstown which is only 110KM down the road. There is a lot to do, but we used our time here to relax before we headed on to the extreme sports capital of New Zealand - Queenstown. We did, however, take a long walk up a small mountain (a steep hill) called Mt. Iron. From the top you can get a panoramic view of the surrounding landscape, which was absolutely amazing. You could see the snow top peaks in the distance, which was a bit surreal as the temperature was around 22 degrees.
We enjoyed some time by the lake, wondering along the main street. We spent one afternoon lounging in a bar by the lakeside, lapping up the sunshine! We tried out the local fish and chips; Becky even tried her first bit of fish, since fish cakes don't seem to exist here, and quite liked it!
We found a government run campsite only 5 minutes outside the town, in a village called Albert Town, with spectacular views of the mountain side. At night the sky was lit up with stars. We slept with the sun roof open looking up at the night sky until we fell asleep.
It was then on to the adventure capital, Queenstown. Although, we hadn't planned on participating in too many extreme sports, we did go and see a few bungy jumps at the world's first jump, off an old bridge over a river. Any feelings of wanting to try one flew out the window with the first glimpse of that bridge!!! (And this was the smallest jump in Queenstown at 43m, the highest is over 140m high.) Instead we embarked on slightly tamer activities - mini golf and the gondola (cable car) up the mountain! Even in the cable car, Becky refused to look out the window as we climbed up higher and higher over Queenstown.
We certainly had some great weather here and were able to make up for all the rain and cold we had had on the west coast! The town had a great buzz to it, with people chilling out by the lake and walking round town, so we hung around here for 4 days - probably the longest time we have had anywhere in NZ so far!
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