South Island Part Four - The Lakes

The day we left Fox Glacier was very grey with low clouds covering the mountains. No helicopters were flying and we again thanked whoever is in charge of the weather. We visited Lake Matheson which is renowned for its lovely reflections of Mount Cook and Mount Tasman. This is as good as it got..

We did see lots of trees, plants and wildlife (again) and had great coffee and cakes at the visitor centre. 

This little chap is a Tomtit. We have seen quite a few of them and they are very friendly. They are ONLY found in New Zealand, which makes a change. We loved the bark of this tree too

And all these mosses

We were heading for Wanake on lake Wanake (!) for a complete change of scene, which it was. It was sunny and very warm in the sun, though, being quite high, there was a chill in the air so in the shade it was chilly. We loved it, as did everyone else we've spoken to. It's much smaller and quieter than Queenstown (more later) and a great place to watch the world go by for a couple of days. This is our van parked by the lake

me having the best ever picnic lunch bought from the supermarket 

A large group of Indians trying to line themselves up for a photo ( this was really funny and took us back to our visit to Mysore) 

And a very easy going pedallo 

So very different from Queenstown on Lake Wakatipu which offered everything from bungy jumping to paragliding, and from jet boats to mountain biking. There were shops and restaurants everywhere. It was like Windermere but 10 times larger in every respect. Oh, and most people there were under 25! We did manage to find a nice sedate trip on an old steam ship to Walter Peak farm where we learned about sheep shearing and had a great BBQ lunch - including lamb - in another lovely setting.

Next stop Te Anau, ready to tackle some fiords.