Thursday 27th December Lake Hawea to Queenstown

We woke to another lovely sunny morning with beautiful views across Lake Hawea and headed off on our journey to Queenstown stopping off briefly in Wanaka to buy some insect repellent. The sand flies are bad at present and they obviously love this warm weather. Last time we were in NZ we weren’t bothered by them until we crossed the Southern Alps to the very humid and sub tropical west coast. This time they were waiting for us in Wanaka! After Wanaka we took the high road which crosses the Crown Range. Again, lupins everywhere and now joined by the most glorious swathes of bright yellow broom. A truly beautiful drive with one or two shear drops and many hairpins. However, an excellent road and really very easy to drive.

We had planned to meet up on Friday 28th with Richard Bowley, his wife Jenni and their family, William, Rachel and Jonathan. However, shortly after we left Lake Hawea we received a text from Jenni to say that dates had been confused somewhat and they were in fact leaving at 07:00 on Friday so could we meet that evening. In true NZ style we said “no worries”. Richard works with Stafford a leading Timberland Fund and is a client of Rosemary’s. We arrived at the Top Ten campsite “Creeksyde” which is very close to the centre of Queenstown and after sorting ourselves out walked into town and observed the “gap year” crowd on the beach. It was about 4pm and I think most of them had just got up after a heavy night out! It was very hot and at the insistence of the lovely lady wife, we sought out the nearest ice cream emporium and consumed the most enormous ice creams which seemed to take half an hour to finish!

Back to the camp site, showered and changed and off we went by taxi to meet with Richard and family at their appartment in “The Rees” on Frankton Road. We had a lovely evening chatting away and enjoying excellent food and wine at the in house restaurant which had fabulous views over the Frankton arm of Lake Wakatipu.