JAMES

For the past couple of days we have been enjoying the undoubted luxury of staying somewhere for more than one night (for the first time since the first stint in Sydney), with the added luxury of having a hire car. This means that not only can we empty all our sh!t over the bedroom and not have to pack it up again a few hours later, but even when we do have to pack it up again it doesn't all have to fit into the rucksack as it can just be piled into the back of our now very dirty and messy Focus. Bliss...

So we have been staying in the "fortunate-have-that-second-A-in-its-name" place called Wanaka, which is about an hour's drive over the Crown Range Road from Queenstown. It is a similar sort of setup to Queenstown - stunning lakeside location with mountains all around, lots of adrenalin / speed based activities on offer, plenty of hostels etc, but it is only about a third the size. I like it. It has a really nice chilled out small town feel, much less busy than QT, but not devoid of good places to eat and drink as small towns are wont to be (see earlier comments re Te Anau and Milford). The Speights Ale House was very much to our liking...

For the first time ever we cooked in the hostel on Thursday night, as Katie was craving lots of stupid vegetables. I tried to argue the case for going to the curry house round the corner and ordering a vegetable biryani, but it wasn't happening so we trudged off to the supermarket and bought our provisions. We timed it really well as we started off cooking in an empty kitchen but just minutes there was a Dutch invasion as 2 separate groups turned up to cook their dinners, plus an Israeli couple. Dinner was washed down with a couple of Summer Harvests at Speights.

Yesterday we walked the Rob Roy Track. The trailhead is 50k out of Wanaka, more than half of it along an unmade road with 8 fords to cross along the way. The lady in the Department of Conservation office (who maintain all the walking tracks) did advise us that really you should have a 4x4 to go up there, but then said that they always see motor homes in the car park, so the fords can't really be that bad. The Focus would be up to any challenge anyway. After driving like a lunatic (apparently) down the gravel road we were soon at the first ford. It looked like it could be a bit deep, and there was a German family inspecting it, shaking their heads and looking unconvinced. After a cursory look it was clear that it was more like just a big puddle, so we sped through and flicked the V's at the scaredy-cat Germans (actually we didn't, we waited at the other side to make sure they got across ok, as they did seem quite worried, bless).

The walk itself was fantastic. Quite steep at points, but a nice mix of grassy valley and shady forest track, nearly always with a view of the raging alpine river hurtling down the mountain beside us. For the last half of the walk we could always see the mountains and the huge glacier peeking out through the trees, but even so, what a great view when we finally broke through the tree line and could see the glacier in its full glory! I am sure we saw glaciers in Switzerland when we were kids, but I can't remember them very clearly. Rob Roy is only a small glacier in relative terms, but it is really cool, and a crisp blue colour in its deeper sections. A couple of times whilst we were sitting eating our lunch, small (or what looked fairly small) chunks of the glacier broke off and cascaded down the mountainside with an almighty crash and roar! A much better walk than the Blue Mountains walk!

Last night we went to the coolest cinema ever. Cinema Paradiso is a small, independent cinema just up the road from our hostel. It only seats about 50 people, but those seats are a combination of mainly old sofas, some coach seats, a couple of airline seats, and even an old Morris Minor. The films are shown from proper old cinema reel, and therefore there has to be an interval whilst they change the reel. There is a cafe attached, and you can order a meal to be eaten in the 15 minute break, and we did just that. It was really cool to walk out at half time to find a table laden with our dinners ready and waiting for us! They also bake fresh cookies for each interval (we saved ourselves for desert at Speights), home-made ice cream and beer & wine that you can take into the auditorium. I want to open a cinema like this! The film itself was a bit different too, but actually quite good. Young @ Heart is an ostensibly true documentary (I'm still not 100% convinced) about a choir made up of 70+ year olds who sing rock and roll numbers! Entertaining, funny and sad in equal measures it was better than we expected, after all we had only gone for the cinema itself rather than the film!

Today we are going to the Fox and Franz Josef glaciers (a 4 hour drive away), but not before visiting Wanaka's Puzzling World, with its 2 storey, 1.5km giant maze. Given my feeble attempts at the Chatsworth maze, I fear we may never make it out...

KATIE

Thursday 20th November (cont'd)

After the Luge and updating the blog we packed up again and took off for Wanaka, about an hour away, where we'd decided to stay for a couple of nights. Met our very friendly hostel owner at Mountain View Backpackers and set off for a wander round the town and to see the local attraction of Cinema Paradiso. I'd read about this in Lonely Planet and it was a must see - its run by a Scotsman and its essentially on old style cinema in that you still have an interval, you can take drinks (alcoholic too) into the cinema and all the seats are sofas, couches, old bus seats etc so it's like sitting in your lounge in comfy seats but with a huge cinema screen - very cool! Booked up for tomorrow night and then wandered round to the DOC office and the waterfront. Beautiful setting again, gorgeous snow capped mountains in the distance and a stunning lake, it just seems that no matter where you look in New Zealand there's another beautiful view! Wanaka is much smaller than Queenstown and a lot quieter but equally friendly and as many things to do. We decided to cook in the hostel tonight as I was seriously craving vegetables and given I now have a streaming cold and a smokers cough (without smoking might I add, unlike someone I know) the extra vitamins couldn't hurt! Battled for space in the kitchen with the other backpackers and sat outside with a great big plate of veggies...lovely..! We topped this off with a trip to the lake front and a drink for James and a coffee for me in Speights Bar.

Friday 21st November

Happy Birthday Dylan!!! Once again we've managed to be away for your Birthday but hope you have a lovely day and we promise we'll be in the country next year for it, honestly!

Today was a day for some exercise as we tackled the 3 to 4 hour Rob Roy walk which promised waterfalls, a swing bridge and a glacier. We drove out about 50km from Wanaka across unmade roads with James driving like a lunatic and covering the back of the car in 2 inches of grime, passed numerous sheep, cows and deer and crossed 8 fords to get to the Raspberry Creek / Flat (or something) car park for the start of the trail. With the wind blowing a gale across the valley, me having used 3 out of the 4 packets of tissues I'd bought the previous evening and hacking away like a 40 a day smoker we made our way over to the swing bridge. Luckily the wind died down and before long the sun came out which made everything good as far as I was concerned! Really good walk, track was lovely and you certainly get waterfalls and beautiful views. Definitely rate it well above the Blue Mountain walk. Pretty steep ascent of about 400m on the way up, but the view at the top of the Rob Roy Glacier is fantastic. Sat on a big rock to eat our lunch and take in the view. Saw a few rocks falling from the glacier causing very tiny snow avalanches which was pretty cool too. Much easier on the way down, and as we headed back across the valley we were glad we didn't do the walk later as the wind had really picked up and was howling through, but it was still warm luckily, goodness knows how cold it would be in the winter with an icy wind!

Managed to get a shower at the hostel before the others returned and got in a milkshake (James) and smoothie (me) down by the lake before the experience of Cinema Paradiso at 6pm! Watched a film called Young @ Heart, which was actually a true documentary about a group of pensioners who got together in a singing group and ended up travelling around performing such classics as James Brown 'I feel good', Sonic Youth "Schizophrenia" and the such like. It was actually a really good film, quite sad in places but definitely worth the watch, and sitting in sofa's was such a cool was to see it! I love the idea of Cinema Paradiso and am convinced we should open one in the UK. At the interval they bake home-made cookies and have home-made ice cream or you can have dinner before, during the interval or after, it's great! We opted for the dinner in the interval so that we could then head back to Speights bar afterwards for some pudding - we'd seen the menu the previous evening and they looked very good! A mud pie for James and lemon meringue pie for me later we were very happy but had to get back to the hostel to pack up again as we would be moving on again tomorrow and had a reasonably long drive plus visiting Puzzling World before heading off (and updating blog!). I will explain Puzzling World tomorrow once we've been but it promises lots of puzzles, 3-D illusions and a big maze for us to get lost in!