Tekapo was misty, but in a interestingly mysterious and twinkly way, when we left and the clouds dropped even lower the further we travelled. There was no chance of us catching a glimpse of Aoraki/Mt Cook, but the drive was still beautiful anyway.
As we reached the top of the Lindis Pass, we must have crossed some magical meteorological line as we suddenly found ourselves basking in glorious sunshine. Although we were heading to Wanaka for the night, two of our number had never seen the tourist traps of Arrowtown and Queenstown, so we continued past our turn off and through Cromwell, the stone-and-pipfruit capital of New Zealand (how can you tell?!), with every intention of having lunch in the goldrush “village” of Arrowtown.
The magical meteorological divide 
Our only shot of Arrowtown – they annoyed us
Now, you guys pretty much know us by now; we’re simple folk. Long story short, we really didn’t much like Arrow-or-Queenstown/s. They’re both really, really pretty, don’t get us wrong, but they were also pushy and grizzly (it seems counterproductive to moan to the tourists that are actually in your establishment that no one is spending any money) and very pricey, so we bought some sweets from a recommended shop, headed up the road to a predictable place in Queenstown (that may or may not be close to the Bean Counter’s wallet) and filled the car’s tummy, grabbing some stuff to fill the human ones as well. A very nice, quiet, and (vindictively) free time was had eating our humble fare and skimming stones on the shore of the beautiful Lake Wakatipu, where the photo opportunites just didn’t stop.
Then it was a up and over the Crown Range to Wanaka.; and what a delight that place is! After settling into our temporary abode, we ambled the streets spending way too much (although all purchases were passed by the holder of the purse strings) on lovely things that will forever remind us of this friendly place. Of course, we wandered to #thatwanakatree where Farm Girl took her turn among all the other photofolk, who were all very respectful despite her youth, before we had them howling with laughter at our #thatwanakatree selfie which has to be the worst in existence.
Gelato! 
Farm Girl gets arty 
#thatwanakatree 
some idiots in front of #thatwanakatree 
From The Crown Range lookout
The evening finished with another incredibly well-chosen cafe meal, a boisterous round of The Game of Life (because we’re a nice family), and early bed.
Farm Girl runs a very full camp timetable and we were tired.
Union Homestead 
Oh – what wonderful pictures (even the selfie, lol)! And what brilliant weather for touring the lakes. I agree about Arrowtown and Queenstown, except that I love eating out, and Queenstown has plenty of choice.But Wanaka is lovely – and I’m jealous of the “tree” pictures – we didn’t have time to do it, we were only there for a lunch break. You are certainly have been having quite the Lakes tour!
The selfie truly had all the photographers of tripod and multiple camera variety howling with laughter. It was fun 😁
I’m loving following your adventure, and remembering…In 2010, we travelled to the Cooks, New Zealand and Australia for 3 months with our 2 teenaged kids. We stayed in hostels, with locals, and saw some fabulous places. Your route is the reverse of the one we travelled on the south island (although we spent a bit longer😊). Thank you for bringing back the memory of travel as it was before the plague hit😞.
We’re just coming out of the Saskatchewan winter and longing for heat and growing things.
Lovely to hear from you. I guess the nice thing about living here is that you xan just whirlwind it and then go back to the good bits. We seem to have done it backwards as everyone we met was also goingthe opposite way. It just made more sense for us to finish in Franz Josef. Hey, thanks for commenting!
I have done that route several times but always in the opposite direction so it was interesting to look at the views back to front so to speak. I have been on the steamer, again more than once, and even had a very short swim in the lake when I was much younger. Thank you all so much for bringing back some of the happiest ,memories of my travelling life.
I think it’s interesting, and also so true to form, that we
…somehow managed to undertake the route oppositeto everyone else. It sounds like you certainly did Queenstown properly with an Earnlaw trip and a swim in the lake!!
I did the very short swim in the lake in 1966!
Have you warmed up yet🤣🤣
You may very well ask !
Great selfie and the views were pretty good too.
Thanks 🤣🤣🤣
More fabulous photos of your action-packed holiday! So many smiley faces! What joy ❤
It was fun!
Hi, Your photographs serve to remind me of the reason so many Australians like to travel to New Zealand. It takes as long to fly from the east coast of Australia to New Zealand as it does to fly to Western Australia and the traveller gets to experience a landscape completely different to our fair land…….so many mountains, so much water!
And vice versa. “Different” is always interesting be it cultures, points of view, or landscape.