After Alexadra we took a short drive to Wanaka, a small lay-back town that was to become one of our favourites. It is pretty similar to Queenstown in its setting – a small town on a lake with views on the mountains, but the vibe is a bit different – if Queenstown is bubbly and touristy, Wanaka was more relaxed and home-like. 

One of our favourites there was Cinema Paradiso, which we visited three times during our two visits (from and to Queenstown). It was a small and charming cinema, where the wooden walls were totally covered with old and new movie posters. The seats were mostly older comfy sofas, they also had bus seats and even a half of an old car! One of the best features was that they had an intermission, during which you could buy freshly baked, warm and huge cookies that you could munch on during the second half of the movie.

We also visited a local attraction Puzzling world. It had two parts – one was a life sized maze and the other one contained all sorts of illusions and puzzles. We had fun and also got a tiny book with latheral thinking puzzles to entertain us during the long car rides.

Other local things that we appreciated were excellent coffee at Cafe Gusto, artesan ice cream at Black Peak gelato and good and cheap shopping at Wastebusters.

Our plan for Wanaka was originally to do the Roys peak summit and Rob Roy glacier track, but as it happens, things don’t always play out as planned. When we came to local visitor information center, we learned that Roys Peak would be closed for another week for lambing and in order to get to Rob Roy glacier we would have needed a 4WD because of recent rainfalls and melting snow. So, we were suggested two alternative walks, one of which we decided to do the the same day. It was a Rocky Mountain summit loop that went past Diamond lakes. 

This summit was not nearly as hard or as high as Ben Lomond, but it was a nice way to spend the sunny day and see a little bit of the surroundings. 

That night we spent camping on the riverbank in Albert Town camping. The river was beautifully turquoise, but it was a little difficult to find a spot among the roots and it was a bit cold in the wind.