Wanaka & Lake Hawea

Next stop was Wanaka, another stunning lake and a small but busy town.





Just outside Wanaka is Puzzling World, a rather bizarre place with visual rooms and buildings that mess with your head!





This is the room of faces, each one is actually concave but as you walk around the room the faces follow you and appear to be convex.





This room was sloping but not as you think, Royston is actually standing upright in this photo...






Next stop of the day was Lake Hawea, just north of Wanaka, and a very small township.

Crown Range Road to Wanaka

The Crown Range Road is the highest road in NZ and loads of fun to drive! The first section is very windy - you can see the road in the distance in this photo taken from Coronet Peak.







The views once you get to the top are spectacular.





The only town on this road is Cardrona, home to the famous Cardrona Hotel.





The pub and beer garden reminded us of a typical English country pub, just slightly different scenery.




Despite it being mid-morning, it wasn't too early for Royston to have a beer!

Arrowtown

Today we headed on a circular route north from Queenstown, first stop Arrowtown - an historic gold mining town. Now a place for the tourists as they have retained the original buildings.

A very small town but loads of character.

Coronet Peak

Just up the road from the Top 10 where we stayed was the road heading up to Coronet Peak skifield. No snow at this time of the year so an easy drive to the top to get fabulous views back down the valleys. This is looking down on the Shotover river and Arrowtown.

And the view over Lake Wakatipu, the Remarkables mountain range and Frankton - a suburb of Queenstown and the location of the airport. As you can see from the mountains all around it makes for an interesting approach to the airport when flying in!

Queenstown

Our first holiday of the year was a long weekend down to Queenstown staying in a lovely cabin at the Top 10 near the Shotover River - this is the view from our cabin with mountains surrounding us.

Although a small town, Queenstown was very busy with tourists from all over the world - this is the main pedestrian street lined with bars and restaurants.

The wind was coming across Lake Wakatipu today causing a few waves and catching a few pedestrians out as the waves came over the pavements. The wharf area is where all the lake boat trips depart and there are also lots of bars looking over the lake.

The TSS Earnslaw is the most famous boat that heads out onto the lake - a 1912 Edwardian steamer. We decided not to pay the tourist prices for this one...

The Queenstown gardens are on a peninsula overlooking the wharf with lots of nice walks. The head of the peninsula gives views down the Frankton Arm of Lake Wakatipu.

New Car

Our new motor...a Honda CRV.

Winery Tour at Ascension Vineyard, Matakana

This evening we headed north to Ascension Vineyard for this year's winery tour. A smaller venue than Villa Maria where we have been for previous years making for a more intimate concert in a lovely setting amongst the vines.

First act for the evening were Midnight Youth who got the crowd rocking with all their hits.

Then Opshop continued the mood doing a fantastic set and getting the crowd up and dancing at the front.

Then finally Brooke Fraser for a more sedate ending to the evening. A wonderful evening of fabulous weather, great music and very quaffable wine!