Arrowtown and Wanaka

Been a few days since the last. Headed out of Queenstown and up the west coast of the southern island of New Zealand. We stopped off in Arrowhead, an old gold mining town just north of queenstown. was a quiant little downtown area with shops, pubs, etc. took a quick walking tour of an old village of chinese gold prospectors that were here when gold was first struck in the 1850's era and their village still had some pieces around. the town is trying to restore them. we had an overnight stay in the town of Wanaka. this was our first experience with a 'holiday park'. think KOA camground. has facilities, no real view or nature. but there is a shower and some flat spots to camp and a sneezy lady next to us in a tent that kept me up until stacey handed me some earplugs, at which point i was fast asleep. we got up the next morning and headed downtown to sit by the waterfront and have a coffee and do some reading. stacey walked around and checked out the shops. i cracked open a new book (seperate chapter on that later) and enjoyed the view. we also picked up a few supplies at a local camping shop like rope, etc. at some point i had several pieces of rope all nice and done up for the rainfly and tent...well...those managed to disappear from my tent bag at some point in the past 6 months and we had none during a rainy night. ended up okay but could have been a really wet experience.

we're driving Sunny, our 4 door Nissan with lawnmower like cornering and metro like acceleration. lookout all those new retro muscle cars, Sunny is in your rear-view!