Wanaka & Queenstown, New Zealand

After Franz Josef, I had a rainforest drive to Fox Glacier where I drove along a dirt road through even deeper rainforest and caught a distant peek at the glacier.  It truly is amazing that these glaciers are in the middle of rainforest!!

Road to Fox Glacier Lookout

After Fox Glacier, I continued on to Wanaka, passing over Haast Pass.  This is another amazing drive through moss covered forest. It seems that every 3 minutes you are passing another trailhead for another beautiful walk in the woods.  One of the walks recommended to me by my B&B back in Franz Josef was the Blue Pools.  It was a short walk over two foot bridges (much less scary than the other one!) where I came upon the confluence of two rivers, one of which runs off the glacier and is ice cold, which apparently then creates this beautiful blue color.

Trail to Blue Pools

Bridge to Blue Pools

Blue Pools

After leaving the stunning Haast Pass, the terrain quickly changed and soon there were open rolling hills and mountains.  It was a long drive before I came to the town of Wanaka, situated on Lake Wanaka.  This town is clearly a vacation town for New Zealanders.  It has a great downtown area with lots of restaurants.  The main attraction here is the lake, and all that goes with lake activities.  I met up with Beth & Jenny's friends Robyn & Grant (from Dunedin) and spent the night at their vacation home with them.  The weather for the next several days unfortunately called for rain and/or wind, which meant there would be no boating for a few days.  So, I decided the next day to head to Dunedin and get in some indoor activities.

Lake Wanaka

Wanaka

I headed over the Cardrona Pass and stopped into Queenstown for lunch prior to heading on to Dunedin.

Cardrona Pass

Queenstown is a bit more of an alpine town with tourists everywhere. It is known as the adrenaline capital of NZ as you can book a full day here of bungee jumping, river rafting, jet boating, and just about any other adrenaline driven activity you can think of.

Queenstown

After walking around for a few hours I made the long drive through sparsely populated land to Dunedin where I will be staying for the next 3 nights.