From the West Coast, we drove through Haast Pass to Lake Wanaka. The lake is crystal-clear and you can see snow-capped peaks surrounding the lake. It’s New Zealand’s fourth-largest lake.

Note! There is only one little and expensive gas station between Haast and Wanaka, and the road is long!

This time we passed the town of Wanaka, only to return later. We contacted the local ski club organizing Merino Muster Worldloppet race, and friendly people replied to us and offered their places to stay over! This shows how generous and lovely the Kiwis are, inviting unknown people to their homes! It also shows how cross-country skiing (or any hobby) connects people all over the world!

We didn’t want to bother anybody on Christmas, so we had to speed up our journey, we needed to catch up with these people before Santa would.

We stayed two nights at Jan and Colin, the bee farmers, who have a lovely house in Cromwell. Cromwell is set in a landscape of bare brown hills, fertile valleys, pristine lakes and rivers and dramatic gorges carved by two rivers, the Clutha and the Kawarau. We went for a morning run alongside the Kawarau river. Besides, we got to do some normal things among travelling, like pick up the berries from the bush for Jan. Jukka also grilled lamb for the first time of his life!

In the 1970’s and ‘80s, Cromwell underwent a major transformation with the construction of the Clyde Dam. Jan took us to the dam, it was a very nice afternoon drive.

The valley was flooded to create Lake Dunstan and Cromwell’s historic buildings were shifted and restored to higher ground, which is known as the Cromwell Heritage Precinct. We had a cup of coffee at this old city center, together with us there was also little Dustin, Jan’s grandson.

The landscape in Cromwell is rocky and brown, but there are many vineyards producing famous pinot noir. There are a lot of orchards too, for cherries etc. We visited a vineyard of Mt. Difficulty with Jan.

After visiting Jan and Colin we continued our drive towards Fjordland, western part of lower south island. On our way we saw Queenstown. It’s surrounded by water of lake Wakatipu. There it’s possible to do all kind of adventure stuff, it’s the home of bungee jumping too. It’s a very touristy spot, and as we are not that adventurous, we didn’t stay a night there.

Arrowtown, on the way to Queenstown, is full of historic buildings, and worth for a visit, it’s like a living museum from the Gold Rush days.

After our round trip to the southern part of the island (Fjordland, next blog post!), we returned to Wanaka for Christmas Eve. On our way back to Wanaka, we passed the Snow Farm! It’s in Cardrona Alps. That’s the home for Merino Muster ski race! We will be back to take part!

Christmas Eve we spent in a motel near the center, after buying food from the local New World. At least we ate plenty, though all the other Christmas traditions were missing.

On Christmas day we did a long tramp to Roy’s Peak. That is definitely a walk to recommend, so nice sceneries! It took 5-6 hours, and was quite heavy uphill. What else to do on a day when everything is closed, and locals sharing gifts and eating with their families. So, there we were with other orphans.

After the tramp it was great to have a little swim in Lake Wanaka. Only Jukka did though, it was really cold water!

Our next night was booked on the East Coast, near a town of Timaru. On our drive there we passed lakes Pukaki and Tekapo, and saw mt. Cook.