Settled life in Wanaka

Wow, it's so pleasant to have some more stability - after 10 days based in the same location (Christchurch), I'm now residing in Wanaka for the next five weeks! How cool is that?! Yep, moving around all the time takes it's toll and I'm glad to enjoy knowing where I'll be able to sleep that night (i.e. same hostel), four walls and a roof, and a big kitchen for cooking in.
Cheers to Phil who posted in the comments and confirmed this as good idea in comparison to Queenstown.


3 photographs of the view from our hostel merged together

Although the lack of snow is a bit disconcerting, it hasn't snowed in almost three weeks now and I believe it's gotten pretty bad up there. There's no snow machines meaning that all they're doing is pushing snow around the mountain in an attempt to cover up the grassy and gravelly patches. Meaning I haven't been up yet. O.k. in fairness, some gear hasn't arrived from yet so I'm delayed with that, but after buying a new board, I'm finding it hard to justify going up and trashing it on it's first day. So, in the knowledge that I've another 4 and a bit weeks here, I'm trying to stall as much as I can in the hope that I'll just get 3 or 4 brilliant weeks. It's not easy though, and I'm finding it hard to justify the waiting. Current idea is to just head up for one day to get a teaser and then wait more - as recommended by more of the locals and travelers here, they're all saying it's pretty bad and only heading up about 3/4 times a week at present! Hard going when most of the foreigners here are from Europe - that's a long way to come to just sit around and wait!
Still though, it's a very pretty location. The hostel, situated on a small rise, sits facing out across Lake Wanaka with a perfect view of the opposing mountains as they get 'woken' up in the morning with the sun. No real beautiful colors like an Australia sunrise, but there's always something special about mountains in early morning sun.


random photo from a coffee shop - o.k. I'll make them more interesting from now on ;)