Wanaka

Before skipping Queenstown I rode out to Glenorchy. It was a chance to cycle along the hilly shore of Lake Wakatipu to a nothing town in a part of the world where a lot of Lord of the Rings was shot. I had intended to bike the 4WD track to Paradise but the creeks were bursting and the clouds were so low that there was no point. I turned around and headed back to Arrowtown via a lunch-stop in Queenstown. Arrowtown is a lovely little town 20k from Queenstown. It’s the kind of place where tourists stay if they don’t like the hustle and late-night noise of Queenstown. Arrowtown is an 1860’s styled gold mining town with modern conveniences. So, as ‘quaint’ as it is, it is just as fabricated an experience as Queenstown. This town is memorable for me as it graced me with the first puncture of my trip. I wouldn’t have minded if it had been a nugget of gold which did the damage but it was the common shard of glass which penetrated my tyre’s immunity. Still, there are worse places for morale to be deflated than two kilometres from my destination in broad daylight.

The climb up Crown RangeWanaka was to be only a 60 kilometre hop from Arrowtown assuming one went over Crown Range as opposed to the longer valley road. I was warned that it would be a tough climb and as the ski-station of Cardrona was 27k away I was bracing myself for a slog of 3 hours of climbing. While the steep sections were tough, the brow of the crown flattened out somewhat before pitching up again for what turned out to be a gem of a ride. It looked pretty gruesome while riding it but it wasn’t that bad at all. It was a shock to see that the climb was only about 10k long and even more of a surprise to learn that it was the highest road pass in New Zealand at a mere 1076ms. 700ms vertical is quite an easy day at the office as far as passes go, so after a couple of snaps there was plenty of time to enjoy the very long descent to Wanaka. I stopped for some lunch at the pub in the town of Cardrona on the way down. The access road to the ski-station is located in this town but the ski station is a lot higher up, which explains my initial error. I spent an age listening to the live-band in the pub. They were playing familiar Neil Young and Pink Floyd covers, which was a delight as I mislaid my iPod and phone in a pub in Kempsey in NSW. They should come back to me before my trip to South America but their fate rests in the hands of surfers ... hmmm! Fingers crossed that they will make the drop in Sydney when they are supposed to. While being without an iPod is challenging it is an interesting experiment. Your ears tune into any music you hear and you really appreciate it when it’s stuff you like. If I get desperate enough I can always break into song on the bike when the wind is howling and there is no-one to hear but for me, the Gods and some bemused cattle.

I eventually cruised into Wanaka, a place I was told, where I might want to spend the rest of my life. Indeed, my initial impressions were very positive. The hostel had great views across a green and onto a skate-park, behind which lay Lake Wanaka and the lake itself was surrounded by mounds and snow-capped mountains. It was beautiful. While there were tourists and travellers there, the small town isn’t as touristy as Queenstown. The tourists that visit are not the adrenaline tourist but people who love the outdoors and simply want to explore the lake paths, the forests and the National Park next door. By all accounts they blend in with the locals who want to do the same thing. What impressed me most was that bikes are cool in this town. Kids take their BMXs to the skate park and there is also a monster purpose-built dirt-jumping track in the woods. In addition, there are several marked trails in the forest by the lake for pretty challenging mountain-biking sessions.  To cap it off, Wanaka lies at the foot of the highest road pass in New Zealand with a lot of other scenic and calm roads for some nice road-biking. The weekend I stayed saw the Challenge Wanaka ironman distance triathlon and so there is obviously a competitive side to this town too (for a change, I was the guy on the grass by the lake reading my book wondering why all the ironmen passing by were ruining a perfectly nice sunny day). To think that there are three decent ski stations and a proper snow-park nearby for the three months of decent snow they get and it’s a winning combination.  

I was intrigued that they managed to have a skate-park and a dirt-jumping park in such open places. In Ireland and the UK it just wouldn’t be possible. The whole thing would be mired in health and safety and the threat of litigation. The beauty of New Zealand is that it is not possible to sue someone for personal liability. While the amount of cover is reducing, pretty much any resident can walk into a medical centre and get treated for next to nothing in cost. If you slipped and broke a bone on someone else’s property you are not able to sue. Instead, your medical expenses are covered and if you require time off work you will get two-thirds pay from the state for all but the first week. I may not be 100% accurate on the facts but you get the gist. This explains why New Zealand is the home to so many extreme activities.

Wanaka seems like this town straight out of the movie ET. It seems a throw-back to the eighties, when those of us that were kids back then, could freely roam during our summer holidays without the slightest concern from our parents. They had a fair idea where they might find us but we were pretty much free to roam the neighbourhood and fields nearby to our hearts content. Our parents always knew that we’d come home the moment we got hungry, got bored, got in a fight or simply exhausted ourselves. Of course, life is not so straight-forward anymore as we wrap ourselves and our kids up in a web of fear and ‘insure’ that everyone else does the same through the threat of litigation.

However, as cool as Wanaka is, it’s a tiny place and it’s hard to forget this point unless your interests are not particularly diversified. If you want to catch a gig, then it’s a five hour drive to Christchurch. There is rarely going to be a new restaurant opening up in town to sample and pretty soon you will have walked all the walks and biked all the trails. This explains why there is a generation gap. Kids who have spent their school years growing up in a small town on the corner of the map (making the grand assumption that GMT is the centre of the universe) will tend to broaden their horizons by travelling to Wellington or Auckland for university. On completion of their studies they are likely to work in Australia or Europe for a stretch before returning home to New Zealand at some point. Thus, there is a fairly lively part of the population missing in Wanaka and it is evident in the vibe of the place. It feels like a sleepy mountain town; the kind of town where you might dose off and never wake up. It’s a great town for kids as they can BMX, skateboard, dirt-jump and snowboard and get grass-stains on their clean clothes to their hearts’ content. Outdoorsy parents will enjoy the seasons, the scenery and of course the fact that they don’t need to worry much about their kids. Retired people will welcome the calm of the lake and the tranquillity of the open spaces. However, if you are not ready to settle down and your world is bigger than the bowl of a skate-park then you might want to look elsewhere.

'til soon

Marco 

NZ's highest road pass - Crown Range 1076ms. Snow peaks of Remarkables in distance.