Our next days off Mags and I loaded up Paggie Waggie and headed to Wanaka. We spent the night at a campground and the stars were in full effect! The next morning we were up for the challenge of Roys Peak…or so we thought. Felix met us in Wanaka for the climb. We don’t know if it is because we are working and there for haven’t done too much activity in the past 2 months or if this hike was really hard, but man did we struggle. Usually when we go hiking it takes about an hour of Mags and I complaining and then it becomes fun and great. On Mount Roy the fun never came, it was just hard as crap. There was never even a single second where we were like this was a good idea, never. It made us feel even worse that Felix was hiking up with no problem, curse his youth! At one point the boy was literally pushing us up the trail. The views at the top were pretty amazing and it was nice to not hear Maggie swear at the trail for a good bit when we made it to the top! However we finally understand why people find Americans so annoying. There were so many Americans in Wanaka because it’s so close to Queenstown (aka tourist central). We thought we would be so happy to see some Americans, we were sadly mistaken we could not get away from them fast enough! Oh my goodness come on my fellow Americans have some class! Don’t bring loud obnoxious music with you hiking in this stunning nature, yes you will get evil stares and people will swear at you as you leave earshot. Just turn the music off and enjoy the nature. Also just because you can bring a drone doesn’t mean you should…people hate drones, all people!

After we finally made it back down the trail we had to go see the Wanaka Tree. There is absolutely nothing special or significant about the Wanaka Tree. It’s just a pretty looking tree in the lake. A photographer just took a picture of it and it ended up in a brochure and now people from all over the world come to see this little tree. It’s the perfect example of being the right place at the right moment. When we went to go to the tree we were not expecting the set up that we came upon. People had their tripods surrounding the tree and there was a line of people to take a picture. This was all before the tree was even in the water (the tide still hadn’t come in). On top of all that there was a traveling piano man playing so very dramatic but very pretty music!

That night it was off to Arrowtown! We stayed the prettiest and largest hidden campsite! And the toilets were so nice! Arrowtown is a cute tiny little town that looks a lot like Rockport (a place Mags took me to in Ma. It’s also the setting of the Proposal, think cute little town). They had a great candy shop where we spent most of our time. We hit Arrowtown at a great moment because its fall here and the leaves were all changing ,it was stunning. On our way back to home we of course stopped by Beer Works, a craft brewery because we never pass that up! Then it was back to worky work where I got made fun of because of how I say banana. Apparently you are suppose to say it with a British-like accent here, so Mags and I have been practicing.

That week we finally got around to celebrating Maggie’s 24th woot woot! We worked a full week and then it was time for our days off again! This time we went to Mount Cook, well kind of, maybe, we aren’t really sure. We never figured out which mountain was actually Mount Cook. But we did do a few walks!

The walk to Mueller’s Hut wasn’t so much as walk as it was a stair stepping exercise and you know what for all the god damn steps the view never really changed much. Then the Hooker Valley walk was really pretty but a too many people on the trail for our liking! But it did have 2 bridges and Mags had a blast jumping on them while I had a panic attack! Our last walk in the national park was the Tazmen Glacier walk. It is so sad how fast that Glacier is melting you can barely see it from the viewpoint anymore. We decided not to do an over night stay because it’s starting to get very cold and it was about 10 degrees colder in the mountain range! So that brings us to today where we sit in the café that we work at eating half priced food and trying to plan our upcoming travels.

Any one of these could be Mt. Cook but the world may never know!

End Notes

I have decided Felix is my best friend and in true best friend form he got no say in the matter. He reminds me of home! He’s just so sassy and is great a comebacks and bickering…its fantastic.

Living with an outdoor/indoor cat has its ups and downs.
The cat is cute and cuddly –up.
We have to leave the door open so he doesn’t freak out -down.
Because the door is open we sometimes have other cats we don’t know in the house -down or up depending on how you look at it.
The cat brought a dead bird inside -down

I always say that I could live in a box as long as I have a chauffeur and a chef. At this exact point that is how I am living. Felix is a chef and Mags is my chauffeur and I am living in my car. And let me tell you I was 100% correct! This is the best way to live.

We are teaching all the Kiwis about smores its s tragedy that more people don’t know the greatness of smores.