We finally escaped the West Coast rain. Sam drove us from Hokitika to a town called Wanaka that's set on a glacial lake in the southern middle of the South Island. Just about every mile of the drive had some sort of stunning landscape feature--waterfalls, snow-capped mountains, streams, windswept trees. We spent the night at a DOC campground (sort of like a National Park Service site), Cameron Flats, that's surrounded by snowy mountaintops. Then we made it to Wanaka yesterday afternoon. It's a bustling little town and those are rare here. You're more likely to see signs warning you that you're passing the last gas station for over 90kms. In Wanaka, we ate lunch at a restaurant that used olive tins as napkin holders and the olive tins were from Volos, Greece which is the port (where we slept about 6 weeks ago) near Alonissos! How weird is that? Seems like a sign, doesn't it? We're both feeling (even more than we already did) like Greece is where we'd like to be spending our time, so we'll read it as such!
We're plotting where to head next or whether to stay a tad longer here. We've still got a month of campervan living to go so we can pace ourselves.
A few pictures from our drive....
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| View from Cameron Flats |
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| Sunset at Cameron Flats (water reflecting mountain view) |
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| Glacial lake near Wanaka |
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| View from yet another one-lane bridge |
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| Note the waterfalls going down the snowy mountain |
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View from still more one lane bridges!
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| Ferns afloat in a stream near Fox Glacier |
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| View of Fox Glacier, afar, from the walking track |
And a couple from windy Lake Wanaka...
