Day 9 from Clyde to Wanaka

Today we drove from Clyde to Wanaka to the lake of the same name. We will stay here for three nights at the beautiful “Riverview Terrace B&B”, which is actually located in Albert Town, about four minutes from Wanaka. The accommodation is amazing. Very nice hosts, rooms with a huge bathroom and whirlpool. There is also an outdoor whirlpool. You can watch Netflix, hang out in the garden, etc. I want to stay here. The hosts have already booked a table for us at a restaurant for December 25th. This is not easy, as December 25th is traditionally when Christmas is celebrated here, not December 24th, and therefore everything is actually closed. Since we will eventually have to move on from here and the next place does not include breakfast and there is no supermarket in town, we still have to stock up here. Cordula is already checking all the options, she is a champion at that.

Once again, today we had the shortest drive of about one hour. The weather is heavenly, even though it started off cold, the temperatures rose to the mid-20s. The landscape on the drive was breathtaking as always. These mountains with snow, then partially covered with yellow flowers (see photo), and again and again rivers and lakes with these unique colors. When we arrived in Wanaka, we had actually booked a SUP tour on a river with rapids. We wanted some real adventure. But it had rained too much in the past weeks and the river had too much water. The guide then took us, drove off, and dropped us off somewhere on the lakeshore with the SUPs. We paddled on the water and back to Wanaka. Along the way, we stopped at Ruby Island, a very enchanting little island. Finally, we passed by THE most photographed sight here, “The Wanaka Tree”. It stands by itself in the water, a few meters from the lakeshore, and is already pretty, but probably even prettier when there is less water in the lake. We did some serious photobombing and drove our SUPs in the way of the hordes of tourists who wanted to photograph the tree at the lakeshore. I don't want to know how many photo books we are now in. But as they say, what goes around comes around, and when we returned, we noticed some serious sunburns, especially on our feet despite SPF 50!

So now we're heading to the Italian restaurant and then we're getting ready for tomorrow. It's going to be wild with helicopter rides, hiking, and jet boating. That's all I'm going to reveal for now.

P.S. I've added a map of our locations in the first post, "The Journey"...