Day 33: Not the Crown Range Route!

It's definitely chillier of a night now that I'm guessing the New Zealand summer is moving in to autumn.  We even put the blanket on over the duvet!  It's been a fairly relaxed day.  We decided to drive the long way round to Wanaka instead of taking the shorter alpine route via the Cardrona Valley.  As Tony is doing all the driving I want him to feel comfortable.

As it was we still arrived here in Wanaka mid morning so we booked in at the campsite - Wanaka Lakeside View - a little tired around the edges but handy for the town, then picked up some shopping. We then drove out to Mt Iron which is in fact a large hill which boasts excellent views all around.

It is a roche moutonee so just the right shape for a loop walk.  Indeed, the views from the ascent were stunning, across the town of Wanaka to its bright blue lake and on to the ranges of mountains beyond, very very lovely.  The walk itself gave us some well needed exercise and on the way back to Oscar the Van, we called in at Puzzling World to take some fun photos.

Driving over here we retraced part of our journey to Cromwell where I bought a tacky magnet of their giant fruit and we had a poor standard cuppa and chocolate eclairs in the town bakery (!)  If we had walked a bit further we would have fallen over three cafes all offering free wi-fi too.

I'm picking up some great names here:  Sheepskin Creek, Gentle Annie Creek, Lazy Dog Vineyard,  The landscape of the Pisa Range is very rolling with jagged mountains behind.

I treated myself to a bottle of 'Roaring Meg' pinot gris today, just had to!

After Mt Iron we parked up and walked back in to Wanaka to seek out some lunch, and bumped into Kayleigh and Mariano in a cafe on the waterfront, how good was that?!  We lunched in Beanie's which was not sparkling but the staff were well meaning, and then had a mini hike over to hill to find MITRE, a DIY store recommended by the helpful guy at the garage.  We needed the stuff/disinfectant that goes in the toilet but the message from places has been the same, 'It's the end of the campervan season!'  Not for us and countless others it isn't, but thankfully MITRE did have some stock.

The remainder of the afternoon has been very relaxed, Tony uploading photos and me cooking a large frittata to use up the eggs.  Apparently the weather may break tomorrow so the plan is to have a bike ride to Waterfall Creek.

I've just discovered that the toilet swings out (how many days have we been on the road??) so you can get your knees in!  How many weeks have we been sitting on it sideways?!