I stayed in Wanaka for four days in the Flying Kiwi Hostel, as I couldn’t find a HelpX host.

To get there from Queenstown, I took the route through the Crown Range. It was a steep climb for the FlobbyCar, to reach the Crown Saddle, but it managed that quite brave. As I started my trip in the late afternoon, it started to get dark even before I reached the saddle. So it was already dark, when going down the twisting and winding route down. Which was so much fun. I should do that more often! 😀

The only pity is, that I couldn’t see much of the nature I passed
Drive after sun down through scenic, winding route. I’m sure I missed a lot of beautiful spots. But you can’t have them all, I guess. There would have been an alternative route, which doesn’t require going up the Crown Range, going to Cromwell first. But it is considerably longer and not as fun to drive. 😛

Once in Wanaka, I made my way straight to the Flying Kiwi Backpackers. I found it to be a nice, comfortable, small hostel.

The first day I met up with Eva, again, who I first met in Dunedin and traveling to Queenstown together. We went on a walk around Wanaka and along Lake Wanaka with Judit, who we met in the Flying Kiwi Backpackers. Otherwise not much happened on that day.

The day after, Judit and I went up Roys Peak, having the most perfect weather to do that. Followed by another small walk in the evening along the other side of the shore, than the day before.

On the third day, we hired some mountain bikes from the hostel, for only 20NZD a day, which is quite cheap compared to other agencies. We biked along the Hawea River, to the township of Hawea, situated at Lake Hawea.
The overall trip was about 37km, which took us about 3.5h, but it was reeeeelly exhausting and on my way back, I had to push the bike up some hills more than once, because my thighs were hurting that bad…

The stay in Wanaka was cut shorter than expected. For one, because I hadn’t found a HelpX host and because Judit and I might have booked an activity at Franz Josef Glacier. So we left Wanaka on Sunday, to go to Franz Josef. To do some crazy stupid thing. More on that later…