Kiyomi and Ren's Excellent Adventures

Woke up with the intention of not doing much today. We've been going pretty steady, so today we thought we'd give the kids a 'break'. Apparently we're not good at that.

We started the day with a hike up Iron Mountain - a relatively small knoll that overlooks Wanaka. It was a 5 kms hike with about 700 feet of elevation. We weren't sure how the kids would do, but they managed to get to the top (with the appropriate amount of snacks in the pockets and the promise of smarties once they reached the summit). Kiyomi as usual, happily sauntered along. Ren was a little more reticent, but the lure of smarties and the continuous supply of rice crackers seemed to do the trick. In all it took us a couple of hours, and they both felt pretty proud of themselves when they looked back up at where they had hiked.

The view from up there was pretty impressive with Wanaka and its stunning blue lake on one side and rolling mountains the rest of the 360 degree head turn. The kids actually held hands and chattered to themselves for part of the way down. My mom's eye had visions of them taking hiking trips together as adults (I know, what ahead of myself).

After the hike, we headed to a park by the river with a really nice playground (including a life-sized dinosaur slide). We had a little picnic in the van, after which Ren napped, Kiyomi did homework and Kohji and I took turns going for runs. It was probably my first real exercise in over 3 weeks, so I was feeling rather badly starved for physical activity. We wound up each following this wonderful trail that skirted around the lake, opening up to amazing views of the mountains. I love how jogging can show you a side to a place that you would likely not otherwise have encountered. The trail went through a couple of small sheltered bay parks with little beaches protected from the wind and perfect for swimming. I confess I did have to stop a couple times just to take in the views.

After Ren woke up and we had an appropriate amount of park play and, of course, some ice cream, we headed for a rather bizarre attaction in Wanaka called Puzzling World. It's basically a musuem dedicated to optical illusions (including hollographs, a slated room, perspective room) and a massive 3D (it has bridges) maze (total of 1.8 km, but most visitors walk between 3 and 5 k to get out of it). After about an hour there, my brain hurt.

Even though it was already 6 when we left Puzzling World, we decided to do the hour drive to Queenstown for tonight. Taking an apparently shorter route through Crowne Pass, I was fully expecting that finally I would experience a dull drive in NZ. How silly of me? Initally, it was just farm land (albeit it rolling green hills which were actually quite beautiful especially in the late afternoon light). The hills started to get higher, the walls steeper and the light made for deep gradations of green and shadow. Well, pretty, thought I, but not captivating. And then we came over the pass and looked down upon a ridiculously breathtaking valley. I mean, what is wrong with this place? How could there possibly be this many amazing views in one country? The late afternoon light made the rolling land radiate, while the mountain shadows only highlighted the beautiful green tones. A river snaking along the valley floor was glowing gold in the sun. Yellow flowering bushes provided a bright contrast to the deep greens and themselves caught some of the late afternoon golden light. It was like something out of a fairy tale.

The road down twisted and switchbacked so much so, that at points it felt like I was about to drive off the edge of the world. While it was a little challenging driving, it also meant that even as the driver, I managed to get an eye full of the valley.

And so, we rolled into Queenstown, Kohji and I completely awe struck and wondering how much more beautiful this could possibly get (we haven't even hit what is reputed to be the most amazing part of the country, the Fiordlands in the far south). Kiyomi was bouncing along with her usual aplomb. Ren, however, is reaching a bit of a breaking point, so the last 20 minutes of the drive were scored with "Mommy, you no listening to my woooords; I wan get ouuuuut!!" By the time we pulled into the campground at 7:30, Ren was in full throttle and I had a headache - whether from the visual onslaught or the child screaming, I'm not really sure. Perhaps we need to reconsider what we consider a rest day...

One of my first comments on Queestown itself is that it feels like a ski town, and apparently it is one. It's built on a hill, with narrow winding streets and a couple of main strips that definitely feel more apres-ski than anything else. The campground here is the cutest campground I've ever stayed in. In feels like a hobbit warren. The campers are pretty packed in here, but the lanscaping is trying to look like a minituarized Swiss or German mountain town, complete with a Oast (as the washroom is referred to) which looks like a German brewery. Even the dump stations are painfully cute!

We had a late dinner at a Indian restaurant, which by the way seem to be plentiful and really quite good here. Not sure if there is a large Indian population, but generally speaking, we've had really good luck with Indian food, even the carfeteria-style take-away.

Now, it's not often that you write about bathrooms in a travel journal (unless they're scary), but there ones are out of this world. Some local artist designed the inside - the walls are covered with massive wallpaper like photographes - a forest floor, a zipliner, and all sorts of other motives.

And so, I'm ready to hunker down in my little hobbit hole and call it a night.