I Wanaka, Do You Wanaka?
It's tough to believe that we're already creeping up on the 1/4 mark of our yearlong visas here in New Zealand, and the traveling (aka. perma-vacation) schedule hasn't abated yet. For just a couple of small islands tossed out in the South Pacific there sure is an overwhelming amount to see. With that in mind, it was never our intention to spend the whole year in Dunedin, so our city shopping continues as we aim to head to our next town at the end of January. The natural next stop? Wanaka.
Wanaka always comes up in discussions of New Zealand's best towns, and for good reason. Like it's bigger, and more hectic, sister Queenstown it sits beside a large mountain lake amongst the Southern Alps. It offers much the same access to mountain biking, hiking, skiing, and other adventurous activities a junkie like me just can't get enough of. But that's where the similarities with Queenstown end. Wanaka is far more chilled out and is truly built to support a thriving local community. Needless to say, we loved it.
The core of town is situated on an esplanade along the lakefront looking west to the mountains; we pulled right in, strolled around, grabbed a stellar breakfast, and headed out on the lake via kayak. Now Lake Wanaka is huge so we only explored a tiny portion but that was enough to head out to the very picnic-friendly Ruby Island (they have grills gassed up and ready to go out there, what's not to love?!) there we slipped under the ether with a vineyard rolling down to the shores on our left as the peaks of Mt. Aspiring Park rose in front of us. It's a tough place not to love. Side note: with the proximity to Mt. Aspiring tons of businesses were named Aspiring ______, which led to some hilarious names like Aspiring Avalanche Dogs (one day they hope to be avalanche dogs, but for now you'd better get the trained professionals).
After a rosy day one, we snuck over to the stellar campground in neighboring Albert Town for the night. We pitched the tent right along the Clutha River (which drains Lake Wanaka) in between a rope swing and a trailhead to some of Wanaka's best mountain biking trails. Clearly, I was in hog heaven.
The riding in Wanaka was one of the key selling points for me. They have several connected trail systems right outside of town that after riding for several days I just began to touch. It's not quite so lift-haul and gravity-centric as much of the riding in Queenstown, and due to the town's position in western Otago is quite dry. Much of it actually felt a lot like the smooth-sailing trails of Eagle!
In the name of doing a little area exploration, we packed up the next morning and drove north. First stop: a hike up Isthmus Peak. Well at least for me, Meredith had the much more enlightened agenda of swimming and relaxing lakeside rather than toiling under the Otago sun. And toil I did. The mountains down here may not be very tall for the most part, but man, are they steep. The view from the top paid big dividends though, with vistas over both Lakes Wanaka and Hawea as the snow-capped Southern Alps formed nearly a full circle around the shorter peak. It's important to note at NZ mountains are frequently so close together you really do have to hike to get the best views!
We finished off our sightseeing with a trip up the famous Haast Pass, the most southerly of the three major Alps-crossing passes. The road winds its way up the river that feeds Lake Wanaka as it rises up to a low, but scenic pass. Along the way are the famous "blue pools" sections of the river with white stony bottoms and utterly still waters attract every campervan within 50 miles. I'll go ahead and say it, the pools are overhyped; with so many of NZ's rivers having that iconic grey stony bottom and clear water you can get plenty of beautiful river to yourself in other places.
After a day of stressful sightseeing, we figured we deserved a treat, in the form of a trip to the vineyard we had seen from our kayak the day before. Turns out the vineyard is called Rippon, and while the tastings may be free (side note: how do I get a job hosting wine tastings?) any visit won't be complete without buying a couple bottles for later. We fell in love with their ostiner picnic wine.
Maybe it was the wine, maybe it was dinner served up from a food cart lot (or the breakfast crepe cart the next morning), maybe it was the locals coming out to play beer-league cricket in the evening, but Wanaka really felt like the kind of place we could lead a happy life. That said it is still very much a resort town with expensive rents and competitive job markets to match. All in though if the stars align we won't hesitate to move to Wanaka.
The Full Nelson
In our city-shopping mode, naturally, we asked just about every kiwi we could find which towns we should be checking out. One that consistently pops up, despite never previously being on our radar, is the small coastal city of Nelson. The phrase "If I could live anywhere else in New Zealand, it'd be Nelson" is not uncommon amongst the natives and it's hard to fault them. Nelson is situated on almost the exact opposite side of the South Island it enjoys a balmy climate (perplexingly as it's just south across the Cook Straight from the notoriously rough weather of Wellington) and is encircled by endless towering mountains and national parks (including the famed Abel Tasman park). Oh, and did I mention it's an absolute mountain biking mecca? Naturally, we had to investigate.
Now Nelson is a loooong way from Dunedin (10+ hours going the fast way) but it presented a good opportunity to check out some crucial parts of the country we haven't seen yet, namely the West Coast. We loaded up and took off right after work on a Saturday (had to make the most of my rugged 2 days on 5 days off schedule) and beelined basically right back the way we came in our last trip through Wanaka and over Haast Pass...We may be getting a little too familiar with all the routes through central Otago.
We made camp just over the top of the pass and at the beginning of the country's most scenic drives: the West Coast. It's 5 hours of New Zealand's most rugged and remote landscapes along this stretch from Haast Pass to Greymouth (the only thing resembling a city in the entire region), and it surpassed the hype. All along the West Coast, the Southern Alps descend from their highest points directly down to the Tasman Sea providing ceaseless, staggering panoramas around every bend. A highlight, as many people will tell you are the two main glaciers in the area that descend from the Mt. Cook highland areas. We took a little detour to check out the view up to Fox Glacier, it was particularly striking because the flora is quite tropical on the West Coast with palms and ferns in abundance, but you look across a valley and there is a gargantuan pile of shifting ice carving it's way thousands of meters down the mountain. That's New Zealand for you tropical and alpine all in one view.
After hours cutesy townships, remote parks, and secluded tropical beaches (enough to have us ready to come back and spend some more substantial time on the West Coast) we wound our way through the mountains to one of New Zealand's best-kept secrets: Nelson. If Dunedin's like Boulder then Nelson is like Golden. It may not rightly be called a "city" but it's a big enough town to have everything you need and then some. Indeed, while we immediately enjoyed the warm tropical breezes, light humidity, warm ocean waters (holy cow, how can the ocean be so much warmer up there?!), and mountain views the town had us seriously impressed. Walking around downtown had us debating if Nelson (at less than half the population) has a better food scene than the mighty Dunedin. It felt as though every little alley we walked down had a restaurant we wanted to try out, a key city selling point for a couple of gluttonous yanks like ourselves.
Being known as one of the country's top mountain biking destinations you can bet that I was going to line up some good rides while I was there. As my coworker from Nelson says of his hometown trails "It's all good, and there's a lot of it." Simple words that describe a simply great trail system. That said, I also encountered something I'd never seen before on these trails, "Forest Access Permits" for trail users. In practice, it means that the local mountain bike club has money to have a full-time digger for trail building and maintenance. But that also mean's that they're much more likely to carve up a whole mountainside to build a bermed out track. It runs pretty counter to my preferred system of grassroots trail development and view of cyclists as conservationists. That said there were still miles upon miles of handbuilt trails to satiate myself with, and I had only scratched the surface.
After a good couple days of camping around town, laying on the beach, hiking, riding, and debating where we were going to eat next, Nelson was looking pretty rosy as a place to hang our hats. Another key feature of this seaside town, it's cheap. All in, rents are low and jobs appear plentiful which means, unlike Wanaka, we won't need to have quite so many stars align to make the move to Nelson. The debate continues but I expect we'll head out to one of these two towns at the end of January.
In true road trip spirit you know we wouldn't just take the most direct route back home, right? Having previously knocked out Lewis Pass on our way down we figured we'd complete our tour of Trans-Alp passes and take the route over Arthur's Pass. Let me tell you, if you can only take one drive through the Southern Alps it should probably be the one over Arthur's. Much like Lewis and Haast passes the road winds up a river valley that tightens as you climb. But with Arthur's the valley closes in much tighter and you rise above treeline at the top; at one point a waterfall cascades down the roadside cliff hits a duct that then has it dump over the highway, pretty epic! It all culminates when you hit the viaduct at the top that is a serious feat of engineering swooping above scree fields as you clear the top of the pass. Oh, and once you're over it you'll enjoy a casual drive through the Craigieburn Forest whose lofty peaks are home to many of New Zealand's ski areas.
After a day of epic driving, we made camp at Rakia gorge which pretty much proves my point about the Blue Pools being overrated. The campsite sits in the gorge of a large, braided river with brilliant blue waters running over grey stones. No tourist trap needed! This spot also had the key selling point of being near a critical landmark: Edoras.
Now if you're like me, you believe that the most iconic scenes from Lord Of The Rings were the ones of Gandalf & Co galloping through Rohan over tussock covered landscapes with towering mountains shining in the background. So of course, I was excited to see the center of it all, the filming location for the capital, Edoras.
Be warned, if you go seeking this filming location it is in the middle of goddamned nowhere, but man is it worth the trip. We'd been driving up backcountry dirt roads for nearly an hour when we came over a rise and into the valley that overlooked the set. The set for the city itself was built on a small hill, called Mt. Sunday, in the middle of a wide plain surrounded on three sides by towering peaks. It immediately took the top spot for "most recognizable shooting location". We were glad to learn that LOTR fans are more than welcome to drive right on out there and climb to the top of Mt. Sunday to soak in the views from Theoden's (former) palace. On the whole, we were really impressed that they were able to build something resembling a city on that little hill, not only is it far from anywhere that could supply materials, but it was also incredibly steep. Just goes to show you the chutzpah of that went into making those films.
So here we are. Having city shopped probably as much as we will before our next move, changing to a week on week off traveling schedule, and enjoying the ever improving weather (and life) down in Dunedin. It's amazing that we're already three months in, time really does fly. That said, I'm pretty convinced it's just the summery weather down here that is saving us from real holiday homesickness. Somehow, seeing Santa decorations along the palm-lined beach doesn't beckon "home for the holidays" in quite the same way. Thanks for reading, hopefully that good god Ullr decides to hook you Coloradoans up with some good snow here soon!
Our Route:
Tips For Prospective NZ Travelers:
- The West Coast is known as a stellar drive, but it's an even better place to explore. Leave plenty of time to camp, hike, maybe even helicopter while you're there.
- Arthur's Pass is without a doubt the most scenic pass over the Southern Alps. If you can only do one, do that. Plus the drive down through Craigieburn is insane.
- Rakia Gorge campground is a fine example of what all private campgrounds should aim for. If you're in the area, stay there.
- If you're riding in Nelson you will want to get a forest access permit, and you may not see signs till you're well out on your ride. Love the system or hate it, it'll be best to snag a permit from a local shop right when you get to town.
- Ride the Dun Mountain Trail counter-clockwise (starting at The Brook and ending at the Maitai Reservoir)...I learned this one the hard way.
- The Brook campground is the better site in Nelson for mountain biking, the Maitai site is good but not quite as well located.
- Don't trust New Zealand Mexican food ever...We're pretty much ready to swear it off at this point.
- The Running Duck in Geraldine. It's in the middle of nowhere, and it has New Zealand's best burger. The gauntlet. has. been. thrown. down!