In the morning, we took our coffee to the beach to let the dogs run around. It was still quite windy, and rather chilly, but at least there was sun! We warmed our hands on the coffee cups and marveled at the glacial lake surrounded by mountains. The dogs marveled at the abundance of sticks, but refused to swim in the icy waters.
Once we were all throughly chilled, we headed back to the van, packed up, and set out again. We drove down along Lake Wanaka for a bit before crossing up and over a narrow isthmus known as The Neck to Lake Hawea, a second alpine-ringed glacial lake.
We drove along Lake Hawea for a distance, then climbed over some mountains until we arrived in the town of Wanaka. This area is very much a tourist area, most popular during the winter when it becomes a ski town, but there is also lots of tramping and just general beauty here as well. We unfortunately didn't have time for any of that, and instead were planning on finding a cafe with free wifi and booking our tickets from Singapore to the US because Sonny's visa was officially approved!
We found a shady parking space for the dogs, then wandered around until we found a good cafe. Once seated with our flat whites, we started hunting on cheapoair.com. After some deliberation, and me rejecting a 36 hour flight that went via the UAE, we ended up booking on Japan Airlines, with a 15 hour stopover in Tokyo. It will be an exhausting journey, but it will be fun to go back to Tokyo, even for such a short period. The stressful work completed, we set off to take the dogs for a walk and to find the world famous "Wanaka Tree." It is simply a tree which grows a ways out in Lake Wanaka and makes for a beautiful photo. As such, everyone goes and snaps a shot. We decided to embrace our inner tourists and do the same. We enjoyed a lovely walk along the lakeshore and in a park made of an old homestead which had some very old and huge trees. We then stopped by the iSite to get our customary magnet, but as I put it up, we realised that we are running out of room!
Our next goal was one of the prettiest drives in all of New Zealand, the Crown Range Road. This road is not recommended for towing vehicles or old and tired vehicles as its very remote and quite steep in places. We were a tad nervous, but I was pretty confident that Fawkes could make it over the pass. We did lots of stopping to oooo and ahhhh over the gorgeous fall colors and mountain views.
When we reached the top, we stopped to enjoy lunch at a kilometer high and take in the 360 degree views. I also snapped a photo to prove that Fawkes had made it over New Zealands highest pass. Then we went down the other side toward Queenstown, surrounded by the scent of hot brakes on all the campervans.
We decided to head over to Arrowtown to wander around before going to our campsite for the night. It was a perfect autumn day, not too cold, not too hot. We ended up in a park, where we played with the dogs and I took million pictures of this one hill that was ablaze in color, but none of the photos captured the depth of color to my liking. It has been many, many years since I saw fall colors and it made me very happy. There were also several LOTR filming sites nearby.
We finally decided to go make camp so we headed up and over Queenstown to Lake Wakatipu, and our campsite at 12 Mile Delta. The campsite was lovely, and spacious though most of the spots were just large gravel patches. We had a pretty good view.
The campsite was a location for Ithilien Camp while they filmed LOTR, and rumour states one can still find oliphaunts in the bush. :) All we got was a surprise and brief hail shower while we ate dinner that sent us scrambling for the van. We fell asleep enjoying the absolute darkness all around and the silence that only rural New Zealand provides.
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