Thursday March 16 - Queenstown to Wanaka via Cromwell

We didn't get out of the hotel until 10 am (check out time) and drove next door to the New World Grocery store to stock up. The usual, fruit, salami, gorp and some sweet chili crisps (potato chips) that Deb had back on the Banks Track trip. Deb found the chocolate bar flavor she'd had here before called Hokey Pokey. I looked it up and it's a New Zealand thing that consists of sugar, golden syrup, and baking soda. We said goodbye to Queenstown which has too much traffic, but once you can walk around it is a very vibrant, adrenaline junkie kind of town with Switzerland-like views.

The road quickly climbed out of town and we were immediately back on the twisty roads with no development, but still quite a bit of traffic. We got to Cromwell and walked around the historic district. It started to rain so we dashed into a cafe and ordered a good old flat white and chai latte (Deb said "best chai latte ever"). Cromwell is an old gold mining town which partially disappeared when they built the Clyde Dam in 1977. Half the town and the old bridge are still underwater. They rebuilt the old part of town for tourists and restored and replicated some of the not lost and lost buildings respectively.

One thing we have noticed is that all the houses and businesses are built in the towns. Other than a few farms, when you leave a town, the town just ends and nature begins. I don't know if that is a zoning kind of thing or people just like living and working in towns. It is great for us tourists because there is so much natural beauty in between towns.

We had brunch at Black Rabbit Kitchen in Cromwell. It looked like all the locals stopped in to get there lunch. Always nice to find the local place where everyone knows each other.

After Cromwell we backtracked to Arrowtown which is another old mining town. There was a large Chinese population here mining gold in the late 1800's. They replicated a lot of the old town, again for tourists.

The fun part of the day driving wise was the road over the top of the mountain to Cardrona and our end destination Wanaka. This is the highest altitude sealed (aka paved) road in New Zealand. Wonderful views all afternoon. We stopped in Cardrona at the distillery and sampled their vodka, gin, cordials and whisky. Deb had an iced tea with orange liqueur cocktail and I had coffee (someone has to drive). Down the hill another 30 minutes and we were in Wanaka. 

We found the hotel but nobody was there to check us in so we parked the car, wrote a note and walked downtown. Wanaka has the same stunning lake and mountain waterfront as Queenstown with about 10 times less people and traffic. If you have a choice, come here. The beach and downtown were pretty busy and again there are a lot of younger people here in campervans looking for adventure. Deb bought me a pint at a lakefront pub and we people watched downtown for a while. We returned to the hotel and someone was there to check us in.

We had noticed a big group of food trucks so we walked down the hill and ordered chicken and sat with a young couple from England who were on their

honeymoon two years after getting married during covid. They had a rented campervan and had also been to Vietnam previous to this. They had a couple weeks of holiday left to go. They showed us the app you use to find all the places you can camp with campervans. We have been curious about this because the campervans are everywhere. Youngsters (in the Jucy vans) and older retired folks in the bigger campervans.

One more walk downtown to the beach and explored a small part of downtown we missed earlier. Very nice town.