Wanaka + Te Anau

We woke up in Wanaka and decided to stick around the beautiful town for a few hours. We ate breakfast, then hiked Mount Iron first to get a better view of where we had stayed the night before:

After, we headed to take a photo of Wanaka’s Willow, the most photographed tree in the country:

We ended at Rippon Vineyard to taste their wines. This region is known for their Pinot Noir. The wines were good, but not spectacular like they had been in Blenheim and Nelson. We didn’t buy any bottles here, but we did take photos of their gorgeous vineyard, which we agreed was the most picturesque of all the ones we have toured:

Oprah is filming a movie in Wanaka right now, so we wondered if we’d run into her or Reece Witherspoon while poking around town, but we didn’t (sorry to disappoint any fans!). 

We drove to Te Anau afterward, and on the way came across a fence where women donate bras (and money) toward breast cancer research. Monica donated one of hers to the fence and we chipped in some cash to the worthy cause:

We made it to Te Anau right before sunset and checked into our amazing lakefront unit in town. The view is gorgeous, overlooking Lake Te Anau, the second largest lake in New Zealand after Lake Taupo on the North Island. This tiny town is both beautiful and lovely, and is our base for the Milford Sound cruise, which we will experience tomorrow. We watched the sunset then walked the strip and found a place to eat that also happened to have delicious beer. Double score!

While walking home, we found this little piece of advertisement for free wifi and couldn’t resist a photo. The internet in this country has been such a joke! Free wifi…yeah, free wifi to the slowest wifi on earth… ;)

Special thank you to: Leslianne, Clay, Guy, Michael and Becky for our incredible lakefront unit stay in Te Anau!