It’s winter in Melbourne, cold, dreary and grey. We’ve just been released from our latest lockdown and we need to escape. We had planned a trip to hire a van and drive from Perth to Exmouth, spend a week diving with the whale sharks on Ningaloo reef and then drive back down the coast again. But the Great Republic of Western Australia had other ideas and shut us out entirely. Scrambling to find an alternative and run-away before the next snap lockdown was announced, we realised New Zealand was more than happy to take us (for now!) with no quarantine to worry about.
Flying into Queenstown once more we picked up the car and drove straight to Wanaka, a beautiful little town on the lake, the lake with the tree. That tree. The tree that everyone comes for. The tree that I came here for. It was worth it. The town was lovely, the nearby mountains were ridiculously beautiful reflected on the lake, and the tree was everything it needed to be.
To be fair, half this trip was about skiing, half was about touring around the South Island, somewhat re-creating out adventure from almost 14 years ago. So much so that we even booked at the same hostel in Greymouth – the one that has served as our inspiration for most of our travels since 🙂
However the skiing was not going to work out so well for us.. a combination of rain and high winds left a lot of the nearby slopes somewhat lacking in useable snow cover. Our first morning up to Cardrona saw us sitting in the cafe for the first 3 hours while the entire mountain was closed due to high winds. By lunchtime we finally called it and drove back to Wanaka after managing only 1 run for the day. Not the best way for me to practice snowboarding, won’t be turning pro anytime soon at this rate!
