Warbirds and Wanaka

Taking our route now inland we pass by Lake Hawea, impressive not just by its clear turquoise waters, at 410m deep it is also the deepest lake in New Zealand. Held up momentarily by a huge herd of cattle moving fields along the road we arrive at Lake Wanaka late afternoon. Obviously a stop off point for all the tour buses the lake front is teeming with young backpackers sunning themselves in the heat of the day.

Rob buys a new rucksack, smaller than his normal one so he can use it on Milford track, (that makes three new bags for him, and one for me, now since we started our travels). We push off further down the lake to stop for tea but there isn’t anywhere to camp for the night so as night falls we move on again to a DOC camp ground on the edge of town, spying an albino peacock on the way. We’ve not the correct change for the unmanned site so have the pleasure of a knock on the van at 6am next morning from the park warden, great. I think I’m crafty getting a cold wash at the sink in the disabled loo (they don’t have showers at DOC sites and all other sinks are outside), but Rob manages to wing a hot shower from the guy who is camping in an big bus next to us and has loads of hot water left over after his own shower, damn.

As we’re awake we head over to the ‘dropzone’ at Lake Wanaka. I put dropzone in apostrophes as it is really a tandem club that operates out of the airport there. There is no sign of anyone though so we pop into the warbirds museum next door, which is full off old world war memorabilia and planes. They even have a stand for a squadron that was stationed briefly at our home dropzone, back in the UK, before WWII. Rob notices a couple of people gathered outside the tandem office so we loiter about until the staff appear and we’re in luck, they will try to get us on a lift with some of the tandems. The guys are all friendly enough but the operation is definitely a tandem factory not a sports club and although the views are pretty stunning after being spoilt at Fox we are happy enough just to do the one jump and get on our way.