Days 11-14: Hikes, Waterfalls, & Lakes

Waking up next to a very blue river we continued our drive to Abel Tasman. We pulled over about 10 minutes before getting there to a remote shore covered in rocks taking the opportunity to have a swim in the refreshing blue water and eat some lunch in this perfect and private spot. We headed on further to the nature reserve and picked which walk we wanted to do and set off. Unfortunately, the tide was out so there wasn’t too much to see other than a lot of sand. But it was a pretty walk nonetheless.

The following day we made our way down to Arthur’s pass; passing more impressive views on yet another lengthy drive. Learning our mistake from Abel Tasman we googled an exact start point for this walk. Doing the ‘Devils punch bowl waterfall’ was a great walk with a crazy huge waterfall, no photo could do it justice the juxtaposition of the elegance of the water falling and the aggression of it smashing into the rocks at the bottom. Someone had pointed out a track to the right that apparently had the best view of the waterfall so on the way back we found said track, that basically went vertically upwards, much more of a climb than a walk. After about 20 minutes scrambling up we decided a pit stop for rehydration and a choccy bar. Hoping it wasn’t too much further we continued until the path was one foot wide with a rather large fall the other side. We came to a bit of an opening looking out over the surrounding mountains. We were on the wrong side for the waterfall and decided to turn around as the rocks were getting looser and looser and we still had to clamber back down.

Heading further south still, we stopped mid way between there and the next stop and set up camp. The campsite had a kitchen and lounge with a tv, including a resident watching Britain’s Got Talent while we made dinner. It was strange watching it feeling connected to the real world, and the world back home.

We were up early to head to Takepo, we’d sourced a great deal for some lake water hot pools in the mountains. They had four different pools at different temperatures. Everyone knows we are both huge water babies and love being in the water, we spent a couple of hours floating around. It started raining, which was strangely refreshing in the steaming waters. After lunch, we headed back in, since the sun had come out after the rain we ventured to the cooler pools before deciding we couldn’t prune much more. Lupins (flowers) are in full bloom in Tekapo this time of year. Apparently these are not native and were brought into NZ and are now seen as a bit of a nuisance, however you can't deny they look pretty.

We braved our first free campsite and tested out our van's stove; both of which were a relieving success. Cooking pasta on gas like a pro and looking bloody cool doing it! With Iz not feeling great we had a start slow to the morning and drove to Wanaka. Looking at things to do we came across a tourist attraction called #thatwanakatree, intrigued we went to have a look, it appeared to have no explanation so we concluded... it’s just a tree. The lake was impressive but I feel the view had been hampered due to low clouds. Wanaka is the most touristy town we’ve come across in a while, and again we ended up sucked in to a gift shop and acquiring yet another Christmas decoration after we’d already banned ourselves from anymore.. Today has been a bit of a rest day but you definitely need some days like this to catch your breath of nothing else before the next adventure.