Happily Stuck in Wanaka

We picked up a German hitch-hiker the other day.  In talking about her experiences during her four months of travel here, she said that she’d gotten ‘stuck’ in a surfing town up on the north island for 3 months.  We weren’t quite sure what she meant (we assumed there was a love interest involved), but we’re starting to understand how you can get ‘stuck’ somewhere that just seems to suit you.  For Amy and Dave, that ‘somewhere’ is the town of Wanaka (population:  3000).

Anyone know where we can find this in New England?

The town is situated on the shores of Lake Wanaka, in the shadows of the mountains of Mt. Aspiring National Park.  Everybody here is into something fun and outdoors-y, without all the crazy adrenaline of Queenstown (about 1 ½ hours to the south).  Mountain-biking, fly-fishing, hiking, kayaking, sailing, and trail-running in the summer (we’ve seen lots of triathletes-in-training), and in the winter it’s all about the skiing.  Tons of biking and running trails everywhere, and they’re building more.  But it’s just got this very laid-back vibe.  After trying unsuccessfully to figure out how we could live here and still be close enough to all the people we love, we’ve resolved to find ‘the Wanaka’ of New England and make that our new home.

Anyway, we arrived here on a Thursday night, the day we finished the Keppler track.  We planned to be here for two nights, before hitting the trails again for the Cascade-Saddle Pass.  Friday morning, we went for a really nice trail run – 7.5 miles for Dave, 18 miles for Amy.  Checked into a nice campsite for the holy trifecta of laundry (clean clothes), kitchen (clean dishes), and hot showers (clean bodies).  At the local Dept of Conservation office, we learned of bad weather coming this way, and were advised to put off our planned hike until after the weather passed. 

Frogger!

We took the rain delay as a sign that some higher power really wanted us to go Frogging the next day.  Frogging, also known as white-water sledging or hydro-sliding, is like white water rafting… only instead of a raft, you have wetsuit, helmet, life-jacket and your own little individual toboggan-type thing (see photo), and you ride the rapids.  There’s really no better way to see and experience the gorgeous Kawarau River than up close and personal.  Just Amy and Dave, an English couple, and our two guides, Rose from Canada and Guido from Argentina.  We frogged on a section of the river called the ‘Roaring Meg’, with its class 3+ rapids.   Seriously good fun!  We’ll let the pictures speak for themselves on that. (Oops... just realized all those beautiful photos of the river gorge are on a CD... and our computer has no CD drive... so you'll have to see those some other time).

Coolest movie theater ever!

Based on some additional tramping suggestions from our guide Rose and some serious storms predicted for Sunday night, we decided to wait until Monday to start our tramp… which meant a fourth night in Wanaka, which we weren’t all that upset about.  It also meant a chance to go back to the coolest movie theatre you’ve ever heard of.  Instead of seats there are comfy couches (and one ’57 Chevy).  They bake fresh (giant) cookies for intermission, or you can have the homemade ice-cream.  If you order dinner at the start of the movie, you come out at intermission with your meal waiting for you, fresh from the kitchen.  And the food is amazing – Dave had the Moroccan Lamb Burger on a gluten-free bun (d-lish), while Amy went for the Chicken Burger.  Oh, did we mention it also has a full bar?  So we’re headed back there tonight for ‘The Fighter’… and another lamb burger, of course.