On the road again heading for Wanaka, NE of Queenstown, where we had booked a week in an Airbnb.

On the way to Wanaka:

 This area is one of the most attractive on South Island and also one of the most expensive - the median house price in Wanaka mid 2019 was $1.1 million

Looking back to Queenstown from the Queenstown/Wanaka road:

Queenstown:

An iconic fence full of bras on the same road promoting breast cancer awareness.

View from the neck on Lake Hawea:

Two backpackers enjoying Lake Wanaka:

Arrowtown is a historic gold rush village next to the Arrow river:

We drove up the eastern edge of Lake Wakatipu (sensational names) to a small town called Glenorchy.

We spotted yet another wedding shoot on the pier and the bride graciously posed for me . Some of Lord of the Rings was filmed north of Glenorchy but we were remiss and didn’t go north and look at the scenery – next time.

Like everyone else, I had to shoot the famous Wanaka tree.

 Driving from Wanaka to the Roys glacier parking area was followed by a three hour trek to get to the glacier itself:

Leaving Wanaka we drove along the edge of Lake Wanaka:

Up the west coast next with fingers crossed as we’d heard about the potential for meters of rain but we were lucky!  Our first stop was the Fox Glacier Top 10 Holiday Park.

The view from the holiday park carpark:

 It was unfortunately cloudy when we visited the well-known Lake Matheson but we still managed to get some cloudy evening shots of the ’back’ of Mt Cook (having seen the ‘front’ a week earlier).

The next day we walked up to the glacier

On the way up the initially misty west coast we picked up a Belgian backpacker, one of many single girls we saw hitchhiking.

We slept in an Airbnb cottage near Hokitika,  about three meters from the train line.  Adding another experience to our list - it felt like the train was going to take us with it ….. 

Hokitika is the home of NZ greenstone (jade) and where we watched glass been blown.

From here we took a day trip going inland to the small town of Arthurs Pass through the Southern Highlands. We travelled from Christchurch back to Arthurs Pass later in the trip.

On the way to Westport we stopped off at the limestone Pancake Rocks and blowholes at Punakaiki.

We stayed in the off-beat Art Hotel hotel in Westport sharing bathrooms and kitchen with a motley assortment of people. 

While there we took a trip up the coast to the Denniston plateau where coal was mined, then  transported (fast) down the Denniston incline in coal wagons to the coast.

Photographer at work

A rev-head car show was taking place outside our hotel.