Check out was at 10 so we thought we'd head into town for a coffee and to post the postcards. After realising that I'd posted the cards from last night in the wrong post box, we asked a postie what we should do. Imagine our surprise when he turned out to be a Geordie. Had a vague look for waterproofs before deciding that we would continue to
put our faith in the weather gods. We then got a coffee to take back to the hostel and watched nine para gliders circling round the gondola mountain and landing in the rugby pitch.

Phoned for a shuttle to get us to the Wicked camper rental, then realised that we should have phoned earlier as we had an hour to wait - but it meant that we had a bit of time to plan out our options.

The shuttle arrived, and it was driven by a Londoner who gave us some good pointers for where to visit in our way, and when we got to the rental company, that was being staffed by another Geordie! Seems not many kiwis work in the south island...

A Brazilian guy came to ask us something, and it took us a while to understand that he was asking us for. Turns out he was after our opinion whether he should take out the extra insurance option on his camper. Stef successfully negotiated the conversation in Spanish, and the Geordie lass was wondering if we could stay longer for Stef to translate. My offer to pimp Stef out in exchange for a sweet-as discount on the van hire didn't wash though!

It turned out there was a "free" pile of goodies that had been taken out of one/a few vans, which included 2 sleeping bags (which we had planned on buying), a green tub full of utensils and, to top it off, 4 free Steinlagers! We set off, annoyingly having to go back into QT to get some fuel before heading for the Hasst Pass.

The road had spectacular views, passing by more paragliders and the very cute (and historic) Cardrona Hotel. We arrived at Wanaka, greeted by its glorious lake. It was so big it looked like the sea. We stopped here for food supplies for the next few days, which seemed pricey but compared to eating out was a bargain.

We drove on, making quite a few stop offs to see the lookout views. These included Fantail Falls amongst others. NZ is (sadly?) really geared up for the motorist though, the upside being we were getting the full benefit of having a camper van; pulling over whenever there was a trail short enough to do from the roadside without making us incredibly late to arrive at our destination, Lake Paringa.

The DOC campsite brochure had a shot of this campsite that, although basic, looked gorgeous. However the author of the camping atlas said insect repellent was essential. Stef had, I'm sure, been the main food source for sand flies in the South Island since we arrived here. That continued at this campsite despite our insect repellant. Having been advised that the best way to ward off sandfly bites was to keep moving, we ate our gourmet ravioli and pesto dinner pacing in front of the lake. The view from the back window of our van was gorgeous though, well, until we holed ourselves up inside to avoid any more bites and misted up the windows with all our hot air conversation!

We had a game of bananagrams, made our less than luxury bed up and, after swatting as many flies inside as we could see, switched the light off to the very peaceful world at Paringa.