Wanaka to Dunedin - The tide is turning

After a couple of not so happy days (see our last posting) the tide fortunately turned when we arrived in the lovely town of Wanaka. We got there pretty tired after a very scenic, but long and exhausting drive from Franz Josef glacier and found a campsite not far from the town centre. Wanaka is a small and relaxing town at the bottom of a large lake, with awesome views over the Mount Aspiring national park. The place reminded me a little of Annecy, although of course with a lot less history and old buildings then its French counterpart. I guess it was the relaxed atmosphere, the bars and cafe's overlooking the lake, and the many tourist shops. Just like our spirits, the weather had also changed from cloudy and cold in Frannz Josef, to dry, clear and sunny. We decided to stay a couple of nights and do very little, so we just walked around the town, browsed in the shops, enjoyed fish&chips and a milkshake and went out to a nice Indian restaurant in the evening. Rene also took the opportunity to brush up his shooting skills by doing a round of claypidgeons at a shooting range nearby and visited the Fighter Pilots Museum. In the meantime I visited an internet cafe to arrange some changes to our original travel plan - because of the situation in Kenya we want to keep our stay there as short as possible, so we have arranged to stay an extra 2 nights in Dubai, and only fly into Nairobi the day before our tour leaves. We are staying at a decent hotel on the outskirts of the city and they will arrange for a taxi to pick us up from the airport.

After 2 full days in Wanaka, we continued our journey to Queenstown. With over 900 adventure tour operators, the city is sometimes dubbed Adventure Capital of the World. Bungyjumping, kayaking, skydiving, helicopter flying, rafting, jetboating - you name it and there will be multiple tour operators in Queenstown that provide you with the thrill you're looking for. In our case, we came to Queenstown for a ride on that fantastic New Zealand invention - the jetboat. We had been recommended a particular company that operated in the Skippers Canyon and we were not disappointed! After a hairraising 1 hour busride over unsealed winding roads along steep cliffs, we arrived at the Skippers Canyon, set in the wild and rugged scenary where many goldseekers used to find their fortune. We then jumped in the jetboat, which sped with speeds upto 85 km/hour into a narrow gorge. And that in water that in some places was only 10 cm deep! After an exhilirating ride of 30 minutes and about 10 360 degree spins, we went back into the bus to visit the second place in New Zealand where they used to do bungy jumping. The whole trip was just fantastic and definitely one of the highlights of our travels.

Queenstown itself was full full full and very touristy so the next day we set off towards Dunedin on the south east coast of the South Island. In the evening we drove to a secluded beach on the Otago Peninsula for some penguin spotting. We had to descend some very steep sanddunes to get to the beach, where they had built a special shelter so they penguins wouldn't be scared off. To watch one of those funny little creatures wobble up the beach and then climb into the dunes is just wicked. They are so cute! The climb back was pretty exhausting, but it was all worth it, even when we found out our normal headlights weren't working and we had to drive back in the mist over dark and windy roads with a combination of city lights and head beams.

Today we managed to get our lights fixed and are now just enjoying being in a big city again.