Day 9 - Lake Hawea

Setting up camp for the night at Lake Hawea was a bit tricky as it was extremely windy.  It even blew our metal teapot away.  But the view from the van was worth the wind.

We met up with our friends Megan and Rob again, who had been fishing for the day.  They hired a local to take them out on his boat and they caught several large fish. Their story of the fishing excursion and their guide, Harry, was pretty entertaining.  He's lived on the lake his entire life and knows it backwards and forwards.  You know the saying, "Speak softly and carry a big stick."?  He was the literal interpretation of that.  Quiet voice, then BAM- bashed the fish over the head with a club.  Whoa.  Before the trip, Megan and Rob were at a local store buying bait.  They told the store owner who was taking them out and he said, "Oh, that Harry is a hard case."  That's kiwi talk for quite the, um, character.

Megan and Rob were staying at the same Holiday Park as us, and there was a fish smoker behind the kitchens that guests could use.  Harry the Fisherman helped them gut and descale the fish before prepping them for the smoker.  When they were cooked the owner of the holiday park helped us de-bone them.  It was DELICIOUS.  Mmm, freshly smoked fish.

(Lance back again) After a great night sleeping right on the water of Lake Hawea and having one of the most beautiful views on earth all to ourselves, Maggie, James, and I decided to stick around the Lake Hawea and Lake Wanaka area for the day as it was such a beautiful area.  We were trying to decide on what to do for the day and ruled out going on a fishing trip because of how windy it was that day and SBJ might get blown away on a boat (seriously the winds were darn strong).  So after getting our act together in the morning, we decided to go for a hike (tramp as they say here) for a great view of Lake Hawea and stretch our legs a bit from a lot of the driving we’ve been doing lately.

Our hike (Great View Creek Walking Track) started at the base of the surrounding mountain range around Lake Hawea and crossed the creek that ran through the valley a few times for some fun creek crossings.  The day turned out to be less than ideal though as the weather was a bit on the chillier side and there were surges of wind gusts that went on throughout the day.

We unfortunately did not make it to the top of the track as we turned around with about .5km to go because the wind was getting pretty bad for SBJ to face and there were some ominous clouds rolling through (it also had something to do with Midge not being in the greatest mood for a hike that day).

This is essentially what she looked like hiking up the mountain, a la Charlie Brown/Arrested Development.

Upon returning to the car, we headed over to Lake Wanaka for some supplies (Maggie’s allergies were getting to her so she got some medication; I was getting a headache from James crying in the car and Maggie not being happy about the hike so I grabbed a few beers.).  We then strolled around Lake Wanaka for a couple of hours to take in the beautiful views at one of the South Island’s gems.  We came back to our campsite and decided that since we had a spot by the water we would cook up some dehydrated meals and enjoy some dinner on the water.  Mother Nature had some other ideas.  Some rain clouds raged into play to cut our dinner short.  Maggie ate in the van with SBJ while I opened the trunk hatch and stooped underneath it for cover.  We were content to call it an early night and get ready for the next day as we couldn’t wait to head up to Glacier Country and drive through Haast Pass. (Not to be confused with Du, Du Hast).