Today the drive took me from Haast to Wanaka, where I had no intention of stopping, but once I arrived and the sun was shining on the picture perfect town and lake it really was inevitable that I would be staying! The drive down passed between Lake Hawea and Lake Wanaka and I stopped at Thunder Creek Waterfalls as well as Makarora for a coffee and fuel. Driving over here is fairly easy, all the roads are single lane and the speed limit is 100km per hour out on the "highways". For some reason though they insist on having single track bridges. Now, I may never have built a bridge and I may be being picky, but surely if you are going to go to the effort of constructing one, you may as well give it 2 lanes. Some of these bridges also double as railway bridges - not sure quite where you're supposed to go if a train comes along! The silence can be a bit much at times also - so much for me asking for a radio in the car. It is so mountainous on the South Island that there is no reception except for the 2 minutes it may take to pass through a small town. I have even tried to buy a tape, but it seems that these are now considered old fashioned and have been replaced by those new fangled small shiny LP things. Wanaka was so picturesque, sat on a perfect blue lake with snow capped mountains in the background. I parked up only intending to stay for a drink and whilst wandering along the water's edge bumped into Monika and Carolyn, 2 Canadian girls I shared a room with in Brisbane. They were just heading out of town, but hopefully I'll meet them in Queenstown before I leave. Once I had decided to stay I went in search of accomodation and found the lovely Matterhorn South Lodge, dumped my stuff and went for a stroll. Having sat on the lake front and watched the sun set, I went back and knocked up a tuna salad and treated myself to a baby bottle of wine. Very civilised! S xx