Day 8 Sunday - Wanaka

Back on the road this morning, and as we headed out of Te Anau we checked out the Vintage Machinery Museum - basically Bob has some sheds crammed full of old cars, bikes, tractors, tools etc. It's like a man cave on steroids - Gary would 💕 it.

There is also the old school house from the days when there were 10 pupils. Bob (who must be about 80) told us when he was a lad some kids who lived further out rode to school on their horses and left them tied up in the paddock!  Speaking of livestock , across the road from the museum we met some lamas.

We motored on to Queenstown where we got more fuel then headed 20 minutes out of town to Arrowtown which is a historic gold rush village - lots of vintage buildings from the 1890s including the ex gold miners cottage where we had lunch.

Next we headed towards Wanaka on the Crown Range Road which is NZ's highest main road at 1121 meters - the first part of the alpine drive is quite challenging and I was concentrating on the road not views, which were limited due to mist. Half way there's the famous Cardona Hotel also dating back to gold mining days.  Apparently in the old days the landlord would allow two drinks to men heading towards Wanaka but only one if travelling to Queenstown!

Indeed the next part of the road was easier and we reached Wanaka in the late afternoon. We were in town briefly on Day 4 but now we'll have more time to explore and we've already visited "That Wanaka Tree".