Wanaka Wandering

Woke up this morning to a slightly cloudy but warm day. After a lazy hotel breakfast, we took the 20-minute walk into the town of Wanaka. A small town with 12,400 residents wrapped around the edge of Roy's Bay on Lake Wanaka. There is evidence of early Maori settlements here well before the invasion of Europeans who claimed the land for farming. Speaking of Europeans, Jayne and I aren't the first tourists here as early tourism can be traced as far back as 1881, when a paddle steamer started trips to the head of the lake Wanaka is now a destination hot-spot for year-round recreational activities, on land, on water, and / or in the air summer or winter.
We walked 🚶‍♂️🚶‍♀️ along the dirt track foot path alongside the lake, doing our best to avoid the mountain biker's 🚴‍♂️🚴‍♀️, whilst gazing across the lake at the snow-capped mountains 🏔. We took a photo stop at the Wanaka tree, which is the nickname of a willow tree located at the southern end of Lake Wānaka. The tree grows alone in the water and is a popular destination for tourists, especially those from the far east; whose mantra seems to be why take one photo when you can take a dozen!!!! Anyway, I managed to get a couple of quiet times and a nice couple even took our photograph 📸. As we carried on into town, the sun 🌞 came out, and we came across a pathway documenting the history of New Zealand and major world events up until 2000. Unfortunately, there isn't really a lot to see, unless you want to hire mountain bikes 🚲 or buy expensive clothes 👚💰, so after a coffee, we ambled back to the hotel. But not before having another quiet moment beside the Wanaka Tree for a photo 📷. We also saw a proposal beside the Wanaka Tree. After he had finished and hugged her, we all applauded and assumed she said YES. After some light refreshments on the patio bar at the Edgewater hotel, including a coffee for Jayne in a disposable cup (you ate it when you had finished your coffee ☕️). We walked back into Wannaka for a meal of pumpkin salad 🥗 for Jayne and grilled Mediterranean Blue Cod 🐟 for me before walking back to Edgewater, some 20,585 steps later. 🚶‍♂️🚶‍♀️Read more