Queenstown, South Island, NZ

After our usual breakfast, we left tiny Haast. On the drive to Wanaka (about 2.5 hours from Haast), we stopped and saw two pretty waterfalls, each just a 5 minute walk from the highway, Thunder Creek and Fantail Falls.

  On the way, we passed between two massive lakes - Lake Wanaka and Lake Hawea, stopping to take in the beautiful scenery.

 Wanaka was a very cute lakeside town with lots of shops and cafes. We booked our lodging for tonight in Queenstown and for the following two nights in Te Anau, and ate at Subway for lunch. After some window shopping, we bought a wooden kiwi Christmas ornament as a souvenir.
Another 1 hour away from Wanaka, and over a VERY steep pass called the Crown Range, was the picturesque Arrowtown. This town was billed as the best place to see Fall in New Zealand, and it did not disappoint! The whole town was filled with trees changing colors- it was like a sea of yellow- so beautiful! We saw an old Chinese settlement, went on a walk by the river, and ate gelato (hokey pokey and cream caramel).

We then headed on to Queenstown just about 30 minutes away from Arrowtown. We checked into our ensuite double with a shared kitchen and laundry, at Pinewood Lodge- it reminded us of an upscale dorm room. The kitchen was hardly used and very clean. We walked around downtown Queenstown, which had a lot of shops and Asian tourists, and ate Moroccan lamb pizza at Winnie's. It was very good pizza, but our waitress disappeared just as we were waiting for our check- we finally had to flag down another waiter to get our check. We read our books before drifting off to sleep in our dorm room.



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