We ended up seeing a lot of waterfalls during our 15 months in New Zealand, but Devil’s Punchbowl is still one of my favourites (I say that about all of them don’t I?). We took this one a few days before we arrived in Wanaka which ended up being our home for the majority of our time in New Zealand.

Hilary took this photo of me from a small viewing platform below the falls. I wanted to be in the picture to give a bit of scale to the size of the falls so I found a little path along the side of the hill that took me to the foot of the falls. Along the way, someone else saw me and decided to tag along. So the first bunch of photos that Hilary took ended up having me and the other guy in it. Meanwhile I was standing in the spray of the waterfall getting soaked while he followed me everywhere I went. We even had some sort of strange conversation at one point but I can’t remember the particulars. It was all a bit awkward and strange but he finally headed back the way we came. By this time I was soaked all the way through from the spray.

You can’t see it from the viewing platform, but there is actually a cool little pool that the falls pour into, which I presume is considered the punchbowl. It’s not the most enticing swimming hole, but if you stand around the base of the falls long enough you might as well have jumped in.