July 29, 2010

New Zealand Blog Day 11: Wanaka


Thursday April 22nd, 2010

Day 11

Wanaka!

It’s quite a unique name for a place and it is also quite a unique place. We spent the morning at the hostel looking up places to visit around the area. I had a craving for pizza and we decided to have lunch at “The Cow”. We bought a huge pizza there for 32 NZD and we made it a point to eat the whole damn thing. It was quite good. I was not a fan of the celery topping, but the ham, pepperoni, tomato, onion, mushroom, and cheeses blended well.

However, during our after lunch walk around Lake Wanaka flatulence hit us with a vengeance. The excess gas did cut down our walking time by a few seconds as it propelled us down the lakeside.

Lake Wanaka is picturesque. There were a bunch of Chinese tourists with really professional looking camera equipment taking pictures of leaves, water, and other naturey things. It’s quite a draw for nature lovers and photographers (pictures). The autumn leaves by the lakeside reminded me of school and it made me miss home a bit.

After the lake, we had some coffee and ice cream at the Cinema Paradiso in town. Cinema Paradiso is quite a novelty in that their theatre is set up like somebody’s house, with couches and tables, and you can order food to be served to you during intermission. We didn’t catch a movie as there was nothing playing that we liked so after our drinks we went into the car and headed towards Mount Aoraki (Mount Cook).

We arrived in the small town of Twizel, just south of the mountain in the evening and after wandering around town finally found a caravan park. It was after hours, but the owner was still in his office and was kind enough to let us stay and said we could just pay in the morning.

We were pretty hungry and were eager to start cooking up some dinner. They had a kitchen at the park but problem is, no cooking utensils = O. After our little splurge this afternoon for lunch we were not keen to go out and eat again.

Luckily, a cyclist from Alaska was in the campsite next to us and had a squashed tin pot in her bag that we could use. After bending it back into shape, Apo cooked up some porridge with pork and vegetables, quite a good meal on a chilly night.

Tomorrow Mount Aoraki, the cloud piercer!

DT: 66.6

RDA: 97.77

RT: 1075.45

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