Well it's been a while since my last post so thought it was about time I waffled on about something! I'll start with Wanaka, though this has been a sort of 'two-parter' journey. So I'll do both parts in one go, and the in-between bits separately. Everyone ok with that? Ok, then I'll begin...

As you may know, I arrived in Wanaka a few Saturdays ago in the afternoon. I stayed at a wonderful establishment with a view over Lake Wanaka. It was more of a 5-star hotel with full-board basis rather than a hostel, and the proprietors were very amiable (in case you didn't know, I've been staying with friends in Wanaka).

After a few well needed drinks and yummy food I slept rather well! On Sunday I walked the track up to Rob Roy's Glacier, which was pretty cool to see and to sit and eat my lunch looking up at. It was a steep climb up, but downhill on the way back!

A few days later I walked up to the Diamond Lake and Rocky Mountain (a small mountain). From the top you get a 360 degree view around the valley and lake.

It's fair to say that Wanaka has its own micro-climate as it's often hotter here than most places seem to be around it, and is a lot drier than the west-coast. But when it rains in NZ it really rains. Like, it tips out of the sky for hours and hours and the wind howls and gusts and the temperature can rise and fall massively from day-to-day. So when it's nice it's really nice, and when it's wet you tend to stay indoors! But I was lucky and had a few very good days and sat by the lake and wondered round town etc.

On the Saturday I drove out to Wanaka airport where they have the Warbirds & Wheels Museum. This is a large hanger with old restored war planes and classic cars (see pics) and was a nice way to spend a while wondering. Every other year they have the Warbirds Over Wanaka air show where these planes and many other old, restored planes take to the skies. A few minutes down the road is the Transport and Toy Museum. Now, I've been to a few toy museums, and I've been the transport museum, but nothing can prepare you for the sheer insanity and size of this place and its collections. It was several hangers full of toys and cars and planes. The first being the main toy display areas with cases displaying every type of Barbie, Star Wars figure, Action Man, Smurf, toy car, plane, train, cuddly toy, old cameras, lego, mechano... you get the idea. It was displayed in the most erratic, disordered way as they obviously acquired more stuff and shoved it in where ever they could. There were also loads of old cars, and even an old Air New Zealand plane stair way.

The next hanger housed every type of Fire Engine (full size) from all era's, countries, all colours, sizes. And in-between these were various old cars in varying states of decay, along with old slot and arcade machines and lots more besides. The next 2 hangers had cars, planes (again, see pics). It was unbelievable how they'd actually got the cars right under the wings of the planes.

Outside were rusty army vehicles, buses, more planes, fire engines, carts that they use at airports to transport suitcases and the food trolleys to planes, it was just incredible and deeply disturbing at the same time. I mean, you gotta have commitment for that, but you also need to get out more! Apparently the guy who owns it lives in Christchurch, but he chose Wanaka to base the museum in as the air is drier and they don't have any coastal winds etc so it slows the decay of the collection. He's obviously collected a lot himself, but over the years people have been donating/dumping their collections on him.

So that was pretty much the first part in Wanaka. Oh, forgot to say that at the Warbirds Museum they had a cafe mocked up to look like an old-fashioned American diner. I had a milkshake and a Kiwi Burger there for lunch (no, not made of real Kiwi's, or fruit). Who'd have thought the combination of meat, egg, pineapple, beetroot, garlic mayo and sweet relish would taste as good as it did?!

I then left Wanaka to explore the surrounding areas and returned a week later. On Monday I went to Cinema Paradiso in town. It's a tiny place with a small cafe attached. Apparently when they were building it they ran out of cash as they were furnishing it, so they asked people to donate chairs. So there's an array of sofa's and armchairs to laze in whilst watching the film, as well as airplane seats and an old Morris Minor to sit in! You can buy alcohol and different sweets and hot drinks to take in, and if you order coffee or food they give you a number and then they come in when the films on and bring it to your seat! There's always an interval in every film and they bake cookies that are hot out the oven at that exact moment. You can also pre-order pizza's and other food and they pretty much wait until everyone's finished to start the movie again! I saw the 2nd Sherlock Holmes film, which was really good, and they started with the Hobbit trailer! They also don't have any ads or other trailers, so the film starts when it says it going to.

On Tuesday Trish and I had a day trip to Mount Cook a few hours away. We had a fantastic day for it as the weather was great, even a bit too hot on the way back. We walked the Hooker track to the lake which was at the end of the glacier and had loads of icebergs floating in it. You could see the end of the glacier, even though the top of it just looked like gravel, and the end where the ice had broken off from. And Mount Cook looked great covered in snow. It's so weird when it's nearly 30 degrees and you're looking at something covered in snow and a lake filled with lumps of ice that don't seem to be in a hurry to melt!

Yesterday was unbelievably hot, up to 31 degrees. So I spent most of the afternoon sunbathing by the lake and in the evening we drove to a nice little bay and had a paddle and a drink in the evening sun, which was still very hot at 7pm! In stark contrast, it's now 24 hours later and the rain is pouring sideways and the winds are howling again. But it stayed dry long enough for me to have a walk along the Clutha River this morning. I even helped a baby hedgehog who had blown down the steep track edge and was having great difficulty climbing back up, so I picked him up in my coat and put him on higher ground.

So that's it for Wanaka. Tomorrow I head to Oamaru via Dunedin and then to Lake Tekapo, Akaroa, and back to Christchurch to fly to Auckland. If you're ever passing through Wanaka I highly recommend a stay at the Popperwell backpackers! Or failing that you could pay to stay at Poppies - their B&B! Very nice indeed!