A week in Wanaka, part II

After climbing Isthmus peak, we switched to bikes. The wonderful Lake Dunstan trail was on the menu, and it turned out to be a tasty dish indeed. We had bike rental and track transport booked with Wanaka Bike Tours and started the trail in Clive to finish in Cromwell, then were picked up again and shuttled back to Wanaka. Everything went smoothly,we can definitely recommend them. 🙂 The trail itself is fantastic, easy to ride with great views as you can see in the photos below. Some nice bridges, two little ridges to climb, and the super blue waters of Lake Dunstan to your right the whole time.

Next up: Kayaking, because, why not? We had to delay it by a day because the Reisebegleitung sawed off half of her index finger with a kitchen knife and it took a while to stop the bleeding. We did a nice short trip to Ruby Island and back to the lakeshore on a calm, sunny early morning. Great views, great atmosphere, except for the last 20 minutes or so, when the boats started to appear and make noise. Wish they would switch to electric already.

Our final day in Wanaka – we had decided to forfeit the last night of our stay because we simply couldn’t sleep in that stuffy place. We were a bit torn, I had a number of nice hikes which the Reisebegleitung thought were maybe a bit too nice in terms of elevation 😉 😉 😉 … . So we went to the local DOC office and asked for something fantastic that is not overrun with people but also not too strenuous for the tender legs of the Beastmaster. And they did pull a nice one out of their hat. Would never have found this one. Getting there requires driving along a gravel road for a couple of minutes which makes penis drawings magically appear on your back window. Magic! What a great recommendation this was – a wonderful forest, sweeping views of Lake Hawea, and traverses of flowering meadows. Plus a cute little hut at the top.

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