We also had another unschedulled stop as the driver forgot to pick up some of the passangers staying in other hostels. Another driver coming after us offered to drive them until they met with our driver that was going back to Franz Josef after remembering we were fewer passangers shorter than expected.
The good thing though is that anywhere we were the views were amazing so I even took that opportunity, while the forgotten passangers were boarding our bus again, to take a few pictures
We made it to Lake Matheson a little bit later than expected (for obvious reasons) :-)
Lake Matheson is a lake where on a sunny day you can take amazing pictures with the mountains reflecting on the water. Don't start salivating yet about the photos to come, unfortunately for us, today it wasn't one of those days. It was a bit foggy so we couldn't see the reflection of the mountains but we could see the reflection of the forest on this perfectly still lake.
Beginning of the walk
The walk was through a rain forest
Have a look at the reflection on the water
Some more rainforest
Some more lake reflection
A really awesome place.
Our next stop was at a viewpoint called knights point
Here we were attacked by the much dreaded sunflies, as we learnt later, in reality they are not sunflies but New Zeland black flies.
They scratch your skin and pee on it (their urine contains un anticoagulant they use to suck up as much of your blood as they can) this pee stays on your skin for a few days making it itch. Knowing that the itching is because of some fly's pee doesn't help either, sometimes ignorance is a bliss.
After that some more bus until we got to Thunder creek falls
As you can see on the first picture, it was a very short walk (about 5 min)
We continued our way to Lake Wanaka where I had the chance to keep practicing my bus-shooting skills
As you can see bus-shooting skills are getting better... you can spot the beginning of a road sign coming or maybe they are a little bit tilted but overall you can see how awesome the views where... a pity we couldn't stop more often...had I been driving on my own I would have taken hundreds of pictures ...we really cruised by some amazing places.
As someone was telling me today in the bus...you see so many impresive landscapes that sometimes you get a little bit inmunised against natural beauty and although you may be seeing something amazing... you just don't bother on taking the picture because you've seen 20 places more incredible than that one...
Lake Wanaka is a tiny village but it is perhaps the nicest village in New Zealand with the mountains and the lakes (yes plural as there is another lake on the other side of the mountains).
On lake Wanaka I went for a walk alongside the lake
Back on the village there was a small farmer's market
At night we all went to the local pub and had a couple of competitions (tiger pool and freeze-ball).
This was one of those places where I wished I could have stay another night but my days in NZ are numbered and I can't stay any extra nights anywhere as I would have liked it.
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It is not true that the English invented cricket as a way of making all other human endeavors look interesting and lively; that was merely an unintended side effect. ...It is the only sport that incorporates meal breaks. It is the only sport that shares its name with an insect. It is the only sport in which spectators burn as many calories as the players-more if they are moderately restless.
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