The next day trip I took was way down to the southernmost part of the South Island to Invercargill.
It was about a 2.5 hour drive from Queenstown to get there, and it went through a lot of farmland, which got progressively flatter the further south you went, and it started to remind me of the prairies back home. But, because it was farmland, there weren't as many places to stop and take pictures as there were on other trips. Maybe people think it isn't as interesting? I'm not sure....
This was before I left the mountainous area...
When I got to Invercargill, it was a little different from some of the other towns I'd been in so far. The roads were wider, there was more space overall, and most significant: it was dead. There were almost no people around whatsoever. I was there on a Saturday, but even in the "downtown" area there was almost no one. The only restaurant I could find open was a Starbucks. When I visited the information center, the girl didn't really have much to say. She told me the only place visitors usually go to in town is Queens Park (which is a giant garden). She also gave me a map of "The Catlins" which is apparently an area between Invercargill and Dunedin (on the east side of the island), where you can drive along the coast and stop at various points. Since this would have taken another 3 hours or so, even though it looked interesting, I wasn't really excited to get back in the car (it was a nice sunny day and it was about 28℃ as well).
Definitely some interesting buildings, but where are the people?!
So, instead of doing the drive, I went to Oreti Beach. Originally my plan had been to go to the beach, stay for a bit, and then go to to Bluff (which actually is as far south as you can go), as it was supposed to have a nice lookout. But....once I got to the beach, I knew I wasn't going to leave. It was really interesting, behind the beach were some sand dunes, and then there was a giant, very long expanse of beach. Cars were allowed to drive onto the beach, and of course, there were some people who took that to a ridiculous level, but most people just parked their vehicles and got out to walk, sit, or go in the water. I did all of that. The sand was really compact (which is probably why cars are allowed on it), and it was a really interesting color. It was almost black in places, but there were flecks of gold colored minerals included. It was quite pretty. The water was refreshing as well, some spots were warmer than others. After a bit of a walk, and a wade into the water, I pulled out my snacks and book and sat down to enjoy the sun for the next few hours. By the time I left it was well into the late afternoon (close to 6), and so I figured I should start back so I could gas up, and preferably not drive in the dark.
Continuing on with my day trips....This particular day I went to quite a few different places, but the main part of my day was spent in the Wanaka area.
The first place I stopped was maybe a 10-15 minute drive from where I was staying. It was called Lake Hayes and was supposed to be a nice walk and the lake was supposed to have a nice reflective view of the area. Unfortunately for me, on that particular day there was some kind of biking marathon based from that location, so it was quite busy and difficult to find parking. I did manage to find a spot eventually, and started to walk around the lake, but I wasn't able to go all the way around as part of the path had been submerged by water and I didn't particularly feel like soaking my shoes.
After that I went and spent an hour or so in Arrowtown, an old Chinese settlement. There was a market going on in one of the parks and so I stopped and had lunch there before moving on. They also had quite a few honey shops around, and so I did some honey tasting as well.
There were lots of little souvenir shops. The street had a ghost mining town vibe.
There was a path you could take where some of the old Chinese housing was preserved for tourism....
When I finished in Arrowtown, I decided to drive out to Wanaka to go to the lavender farm and maybe look for some more places to do some hiking. The road to get there was pretty fun to drive on. It was called the Crown Range Road, and it took you up into the alpine kind of area in the mountains. There were a lot of really steep, 180 switchbacks which meant some slow driving (on the switchbacks the speed limit went from 90 to 5 or 10 km/h depending on how steep and sharp it was. On this road there were quite a few areas where you could pull over and admire the views, or stop and check out the pretty lupin growing on the hills. It took a bit longer than expected to get there but, I won't complain because it was absolutely beautiful!
At the lavender farm, they had a lot of products you could test and buy. Of course I had to get some lavender ice cream too! (They had a few different flavors, straight lavender, boysenberry-lavender, and manuka-lavender). Then I took a walk through the garden area. It was really pretty and there were so many different kinds of lavender. They also had a rose garden and some different animals around as well.
The horse by the tree was grumpy. It gave me the evil eye when I tried to take its picture
It was peaceful. So many bees! Click here to watch if it doesn't work.
After that I went out to the town of Wanaka itself. There is a large lake, with some nice mountain views, and there is the famous "That Wanaka Tree". The tree is a bit unusual as it is growing out of the lake all by itself. I spent a bit of time by the lake before heading out again.
Around Wanaka there are a lot of hiking trails, but since I got there in the afternoon, I had a limited amount of time for hiking (plus it would be a couple hours to drive back as well).
In the end I decided to go to Diamond Lake (a different one from the one near Glenorchy..why there is more than one Diamond Lake, I don't know...). It was maybe a 30-40 minute drive from Wanaka, and there were lots of other hiking trails on the way, but they were 4-5 hour hikes and I didn't want to be coming back when it was dark so... The Diamond Lake track went around the little Diamond Lake and took about 45 minutes to get to the lookout point. Getting up to the lookout you had to go through a bit of forest before it opened up and I got so many bug bites! The lookout was quite pretty and let you see all the way back to Lake Wanaka.
First glimpse of Diamond Lake
Looking down on Diamond Lake
Out of the forest!
Daisies everywhere!
Looking out at Lake Wanaka
From the lookout...
Diamond Lake Lookout. Click here if it doesn't work.
On the way back to Queenstown, I started out on a different road but ended up back on the Crown Range Road, and I was able to stop at some more points that I couldn't the first time and took a few more pretty pictures.
