Wanaka and Queenstown

Wanaka and Queenstown are the epicenters of action- and adventure-tourism in New Zealand. They also are capable of shaking your travel budget to the core, so we just spent one day in each of these cities. But even without spending loads of cash for things like skydiving, valley-bouncing, jetboating or abseiling, the cities are situated beautifully between vast lakes and high mountains. So lying on the beaches of the lake and gazing at the surrounding landscape is definitely a cheap option.
Nevertheless, we couldn´t deny ourselves at least one adrenaline-pumping activity, why we decided to do the Rafting in Queenstown, which has been recommended to us by some people who have already done it. Sadly, the most exciting part of the Rafting was the bus drive to the entry point, which lead us through infamous Skipper Valley with crumbling, narrow streets hewn into the steep mountains. The Rafting itself was a bore, disrupted only by an occasional rapid. There are no photos either, as the prices for them were a daylight robbery. We would have been better off with (the not too expensive) skydiving. One of the few things we would do differently coming back to NZL some time.

In Wanaka we had another enjoyable encounter with the DOC: Obviously we chose an illegal camping spot on some of the 1000s of little beaches on the Lake Wanaka, whereupon a hockey haired agent came knocking on our car windows at 5 o´clock in the morning to tell us that we should better leave the premises of Wanaka county in order not to get prosecuted - and never come back again (!). Still laughing hard, we thanked this nice Kiwi for giving us the chance to see one of the best sunrises we had in the golden mountains between Wanaka and Queenstown (where we wanted to spend the next day anyway). Moreover, I have never seen as many rabbits in my life as on this leg of our trip, whether they were zigzagging away from the road or flat and dead on the road. What a pity that the famous NZL restaurant "You kill it we grill it" wasn´t too close by...


The illegal camping with Leena and Tinka


Moonset near Queenstown

After spending the day in Queenstown we headed north again to gain some time for tomorrow. This part of our trip looked dull on the map, but the vast expanses of the countryside there was surprisingly compelling.


My favourite hills


On the cruise through what must be the Kiwi version of the Midwest United States


More sky than at any other place in NZL


In memory of Pez, we stopped at ¨Peter´s Lookout¨ with a first view of Mount Cook, this time from the other (eastern) side.

Plain(ly) enjoyment at: http://www.flickr.com/photos/stephan_mittas/sets/72157614337422928/