New Zealand 2015/16: Wanaka

Marcell and I had thought about going for a skiing trip for quite a long time. And this weekend (25. & 26. July) we made our dream of skiing in July come true and left Dunedin at 8.30 am and went for a drive to Wanaka, a gorgeous little town in the middle of the Southern Alps of New Zealand

What a beautiful day for a road-trip to Wanaka. Here we´ve just left the city of Dunedin and are on our way south.

Driving and listening to some rock- and country-music can be so much fun!

The road to Wanaka led us past a beautiful artificial lake. I have to say that the roads in New Zealand in general (and especially the ones leading into the mountains) are amazing to drive. They are so curved and up and down that the driving itself is so much fun!

We are getting close to Wanaka and therefore we are approaching the first mountains.

We arrived in Wanaka around noon and had some delicious burgers for lunch. After that we decided to go for a little hike and drove to the nearby Mt. Iron. The weather was surprisingly warm for winter and we could easily walk around in T-Shirts instead of thick and warm winter jackets.

A 180° view from the top of Mt. Iron. On the left side you can see the city of Wanaka, Lake Wanaka and the mountains.

Marcell is taking a little break on the way back down.

Sitting on a rock, starring into the distance and enjoying the peace of nature.

After climbing Mt. Iron we decided to explore the Lake Wanaka and play some mini-golf.

After a nice but short evening in two or three different bars in town we went to bed quite early because we wanted to leave as early as possible the next day to reach our next destination on time: the Cardrona Ski Resort.
Unfortunately we had to rent nearly all of the equipment because we weren´t able to bring our own equipment to New Zealand, so it was a quite expensive experience. But nevertheless it was totally worth it!

This is the "road" from Wanaka to the Cardrona Ski Resort. You will see some more pictures of it later in this post and you will understand why we will remember this road until the end of our life! We took this picture while skiing to the lowest-level lift. From there you had an amazing view over the valley.

The slopes were in a surprisingly good condition and we did not have to wait once to enter the lift. I would even go as far and rate it perfect conditions to be honest!

The weather changed its mind every few minutes and we skied from sunshine and blue skies like here to dark grey sky and snowfall several times.

On the way back to the bottom of the Cardona-mountains we took some nice pictures of the valley and the "road" leading from Wanaka to the Cardrona Ski Resort.

The "road" itself was literally a dirt road, with not a single part asphalted. Going up to the top in serpentines, without any solid surface combined with snowfall, slippery mud and no real guardrail at the edge of the road, it was quite an adventure to drive up to and back down from the Ski Resort!!!

On the way back to Dunedin we made a stop in Cromwell and paid the Highlands Motorsport Park a visit. We watched some race-cars making their laps on the racetrack and (of course) we went for a go-kart drive! It was ridiculously expensive (35$ for only 10 minutes of driving) but that couln´t keep us from showing the kiwis our go-kart skills.