After sharing a few of our Queenstown/Arrowtown favorites with Jenny, it was time to continue our journey around the South Island. We drove north to Lake Wanaka. The road wound sharply over a mountain (thank you CVS Vertigo-less!) and through a valley until we arrived at the beautiful alpine lake nestled in the midst of towering mountains. The upscale area is a year-round magnet for New Zealanders who come to ski in the winter and fish, hike and swim in the summer.

Knowing we’d be staying for a few days, we went through our routine: Check out the place and see if we need to add staples to our grocery list (i.e. salt/pepper, olive oil, toilet paper); Frank finds a pool for his daily workout (we’ve been lucky in that each town we’ve visited has had at least one); we hook up our adaptors and connect our phones/computers to the internet. Then it’s off to the grocery store for our first exploration of town.

Jenny was in shock when she experienced the throngs of people in the grocery store. As I mentioned, it’s vacation time in New Zealand. RVs are everywhere and kiwis flock to their summer homes. The restaurants and grocery stores are filled with hungry people. Especially when we are staying long term, we eat many of our meals “in.” Lake Wanaka was no different. The restaurants we did visit (via local recommendations), however, were very good.

The weather and the area were both beautiful. Our original plan was to relax for a couple of days but we decided we couldn’t let Jenny come to NZ without seeing Lake Tekapo or Milford Sound. It made for a busier schedule but Jenny was a trooper—and we certainly didn’t mind seeing these wonderful places again!