Wanaka

  Waking up to a surprisingly sunny and cold morning, we turned inland direction Wanaka alongside the Haast river, climbing up to Haast Pass and the Mount Aspiring National park. We missed the stunning Blue Pools as they were closed, but we could admired the views from the no so distant inaugurated road (opened in 1965). After 2 hours and a half of turns to the right to the left, we entered the Wanaka region, crowned with the colossal Mount Aspiring ( second to Mount Cook). We first encountered the twin lakes of Hawea and Wanaka, surrounded by hills and cliffs, amazingly beautiful. We continued till the village of Wanaka where we parked by the lakefront and walk around the small town. We had lunch with nice views, my salmon was delicious, though tiny for a main, and dani’s sheet-thick beef burger looked good but small, or maybe our stomachs are getting bigger… Saturday was the day of mountain bikes race and a big fair of cattle, agricultural machineries, camper-vans, and other interesting stuff. We wandered around with our ice-creams and big smiles, the sun makes us happier. We continued the 100 km to Queenstown, passing the highest pass in NZ at 1000 something meters, spectacular views and yet another windy road. And we arrived to the South Island’s premier tourist town, with a cinematic background of mountains and lakes, charming. This is the place to come  for whatever adrenaline activity you might think of. The offer is so impressive, you could stay for weeks and not finish it, you must have a platinum card with a big limit. We decided to go for a trekking around the area and drove for some 30 minutes along the road to Diamond Track, and easy trek with Diamond lake views and a lookout of the Lake Wakatipu and mountains. Extremely beautiful as you can see with the picture.

And then, the question: to spend or not to spend ( a huge amount of money). Since I was a kid, I wanted to do something: jump off a place with a parachute. In my dreams I never considered the fear, the cost or the need for a tandem dive master or even two to jump with you so you can count it afterwards. Here the opportunity was perfect, fantastic place, with lake, mountains, sun, what else can you ask. I had told dani that I wanted to do it, but he was not very keen on it, he did once bungy jumping and that was the end of the big shocks. After 100 hundreds “I do not know”, I decided that we had to do it. Dani as excited as with the tango, agreed (two things off my things-to-do-before-I-die list), so I phoned to book the 12000 feet jump for Sunday at 10.30. Ahhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh