Wanaka:

After spending about 6 weeks driving across New Zealand, we had finally arrived in Wanaka. Before leaving Canada, we had tentatively planned to make Wanaka our home base in New Zealand. We got lucky in making that choice because the area around Wanaka was by far our favourite place in New Zealand that we had seen so far. Shortly after arriving here, we knew that we had made a great choice.

We got lucky in other ways as well. A few weeks before arriving in Wanaka, we had started sending out emails and making phone calls about employment in Wanaka. Even though we each had sent out 20 or 30 inquiries to cafes, restaurants, ski hills, outdoor stores, and bike shops, we each received exactly one response. I had heard back from a bike shop, and Hilary from a cafe in town.

At the same time that we were looking for employment in Wanaka, we were also looking for a place to live in the town. Just like our luck with employment, we also got very lucky with finding somewhere to live. We had sent out a few different emails about places to rent and received exactly one response.

So, on October 30th we arrived in Wanaka with one job prospect each and one potential place to live. The house turned out to be really awesome and coincidentally, there were 6 other Canadians living in the house. It was the exact setup that we were hoping for with a great location within walking distance to town, really fun roommates that were all our age with similar interests, and a big room with our own ensuite bathroom.

The job prospects also ended up working out better than we could have ever expected as we both got job offers after only a few days in Wanaka. Hilary began work at a cafe called Patagonia and I was at a bike shop called Outside Sports. Many people might not consider working at a small bike shop to be a dream job, but for me it was the best thing that could have happened and was a dream come true. Especially considering that my other options were probably something like fruit picking or dishwashing which would have been far less enjoyable.

Not only was I learning about and spending all day surrounded by my favourite hobby, I was also able to work with like-minded and inspiring people. Not to mention that I hadn’t brought a bike or any gear with me, so I will now be able to set myself up with all new equipment through some sweet discounts!

So, everything worked out remarkably well after arriving in Wanaka and part of it may have been luck, part from planning and perseverance on our part, and maybe some of it was just meant to be. Whatever the reason for our good fortune, we’re overwhelming excited for everything that’s happened since arriving in New Zealand.

We’re surrounded by so many great people, in a beautiful part of New Zealand, and are able to explore and immerse ourselves in the area far more than we could if we were only travelling through. I’ve always loved the feeling of travelling and exploring new places, but living and working across the world from home is a completely different thing entirely.

The only problem is that it can be easy to forget where you are and fall into the same habits that you sometimes find at home. You go to work, come home tired and spend the rest of the evening hanging around on the internet or watching Netflix. But there is so much to explore and do in Wanaka that it seems like any moment not out seeing somewhere new is a wasted moment.

That being said, a big part of our year-long trip to New Zealand is balancing work with travel. So even though it was great spending 6 weeks travelling across the country and seeing new things every day, there is a totally different experience (and a necessary income) to be gained by staying in one place and working. Therefore, while we still plan to do as much adventuring as possible while we are working in Wanaka, it won’t be quite as frequent until we get back on the road.

Because we’ll be staying in Wanaka for longer than anywhere else that we’ve been so far, I thought that I should describe it in a bit more detail than other places from the trip so far. So here it goes…

Wanaka sits near the bottom of the South Island and is a few hours from either the west coast or east coast. It’s not a very big town and has roughly 5,000 people that live here. The town sits on the edge of a lake which is, not surprisingly, called Lake Wanaka. The town centre starts at the edge of the lake and is filled with small shops, outdoor stores and bike/ski shops, cafes, and bars.

Wanaka is a resort town with several ski fields (one of which operates for biking in the summer) within a 30 minute drive from town. And besides skiing or biking, lots of people come to Wanaka for hiking, boating, kiteboarding, windsurfing, skydiving, and golfing.

The landscape around Wanaka varies drastically depending on what direction you head away from town. In one direction, you are met with large mountains capped with glaciers and wide rivers flowing through deep valleys. In another direction you find smaller hills and farmland or vineyards, and north of Wanaka you find thick rainforest and huge waterfalls pouring off of the sides of steep valleys. Further still, you find the popular attractions such as Milford Sound and Doubtful Sound, and Franz Josef Glacier.

About an hour south of Wanaka is another popular resort town called Queenstown which is deemed the adventure capital of the world. It is quite a bit larger than Wanaka but is also far busier and more touristy than Wanaka. Lots of people travel to Queenstown to party, bungee jump, mountain bike, or shop, so it’s nice to be able to go there for a day or a weekend before retreating back to Wanaka for some peace and quiet.

So, needless to say again, there is a ton to see and do around Wanaka, and here are a couple of fun things that we’ve been able to do in our first few weeks in the area:

Isthmus Peak:

About 45 minutes north of Wanaka is a mountain called Isthmus. It is the tallest of three mountains that sit in between Lake Wanaka and Lake Hawea. When you start climbing the mountain, you have great views back down towards Lake Hawea, but at the top, there is a small portion of the trail where you can see both Lake Hawea and Lake Wanaka which is cool.

There isn’t much for tall trees and thick vegetation in this part of New Zealand so you are in the alpine for the entire hike which means that your view is never obstructed while climbing. The trail up isn’t very exciting in itself and is just an old road that winds slowly up the side of the peak. The views, however, are spectacular. Particularly the views of Lake Hawea and the mountains that surround it. The lake has a vibrant blue colour when the sunlight hits it and the mountains surrounding it are dark, jagged, and dramatic.

For certain times of the year, Isthmus is closed for lambing, but we were able to sneak in our hike just before it closed for a few months. Lambing occurs in the spring and certain areas are closed while the lambs are first being born. Sheep are so skittish during these times that if they are scared by people soon after the lambs are born, they will sometimes run away and abandon the lambs.

The climb itself took us about 3 hours up and 2 hours to get back down. You are also able to take bikes on the trail (unlike many of the hikes in the area), but unfortunately we didn’t have any access to bikes for this trip.

Rob Roy Glacier:

Another popular hike in the area is called Rob Roy Glacier. It is in Mount Aspiring National Park which is about 50km’s from Wanaka. It takes about an hour to get there, however, because the road turns into gravel and becomes quite rough and slow to drive.

Near the end of the road, there are about 11 creek crossings that aren’t very wide or deep, but force you to slow down which makes the drive quite long. The bonus, however, is that the drive takes you through a beautiful valley where you get views of Mount Aspiring and other tall peaks that are capped with glaciers. All through the valley, there are gigantic waterfalls that plunge from the steep mountain sides that make up the valley.

The hike doesn’t take very long and can be completed in 3 or 4 hours and most of the time you are walking through a native Beech forest. Only at the very end of the hike do you break out of the trees and get a view of Rob Roy Glacier clinging to the black walls or rock high above you.

The glacier is really impressive and waterfalls pour off of it in many directions and plummet down to the valley floor in front of you. Unfortunately the lighting was really terrible on the day that we were at the glacier and I had trouble getting any good pictures or capturing the magic of the place, so I’ll just have to return again soon!

Blue Pools:

Earlier I had mentioned that driving north from Wanaka takes you to a place that is kind of like a rainforest or jungle. This area is around a place called Haast Pass and it’s where the Blue Pools are located. Unfortunately on the day that we went to the Blue Pools, it was very rainy so we weren’t able to see the clear blue water that makes the Blue Pools unique. I also wasn’t able to take any pictures because it was raining so heavily.

Also in this area are a few waterfalls such as Fantail Falls and Thunder Creek Falls. The moist air from the west coast of New Zealand gets blown over the Southern Alps in this area and drops all of its moisture which creates a ton of precipitation which is the reason for the rainforest and huge waterfalls. By the time that same air gets to Wanaka, however, it has lost all of it’s moisture which is why Wanaka is much drier and has less vegetation. So, on the day that we went to the Blue Pools it was raining heavily, but as soon as we got near Wanaka again, the rain stopped suddenly.