Rick and Marie's Travels: The South Island—Haast to Wanaka February 23, 2025

Haast to Wanaka February 23, 2025

We had a leisurely drive to Wanaka, stopping along the way to take some pictures and videos of waterfalls and Lake Wanaka and Lake Hāwea, two of the larger lakes on the south island.

Roaring Billy Falls are 98ft/30m high & "roar" into Haast River.

The walk to Roaring Billy Falls.

Haast Riverbed. Gives you a sense of its volume during spring runoff.

There's a miniature forest growing along this tree trunk.

Thunder Creek Falls cascade 92ft/28m into the Haast River. In my humble opinion they are more dramatic and prettier than the Roaring Billy Falls.

Lake Wanaka is New Zealand's fourth-largest lake and the seat of the town of Wānaka in the Otago region. The lake is 834ft/278m above sea level, more than 980ft/300m deep and is 26 miles/42 kilometers long. Lake Wānaka lies in a u-shaped valley formed by glacial erosion during the last ice age more than 10,000 years ago. It is fed by the Matukituki and Makarora Rivers, and is the source of the Clutha River/Mata-Au.

Nearby Lake Hāwea lies in a parallel valley carved by a neighbouring glacier 5 miles/8 kilometres to the east. At their closest point (a rocky ridge called The Neck), the lakes are only .6 miles/1000m apart. (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lake_Wānaka)

Lake Wanaka from shore in town.

The lakeshore promenade goes "forever" and provides spectacular views of the surrounding mountains and plenty of opportunities for swimming.

Chillin in the shade after linner and dessert.

We're taking this "Happy Hour" cruise Monday (Feb. 24th).

Linner, a shared giant plate of nachos. Somehow we walked 5.5 miles today walking to both waterfalls on our way here and just checking out Wanaka's town center and a bit of the lakeshore promenade.

I had raspberry sorbet and Marie's choice was dark chocolate. We traded bites.

Lake Hāwea is New Zealand's ninth largest lake located on the South Island in the Otago Region at an altitude of 1,044ft/348m and is 1,176ft/392m deep. Lake Hāwea stretches 22 miles/35 kilometers from north to south. It lies in a glacial valley formed during the last ice age, and is fed by the Hunter River. Lake Hāwea is named after a Māori tribe. (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lake_Hāwea)

I took the following picture and video of Lake Hāwea at "The Neck" between both lakes on our way into Wanaka.

Wanaka—Monday, February 24, 2025

By 3PM today we walked 5 miles. Part of it was hiking up the Mt. Iron track and the rest of the day was just wandering around Wanaka.

View from our room at 7AM.

It's up and we knew that and...

...the start was deceptive.

And then we rounded another bend.

Lake Wanaka from part way up.

Same view to give perspective of the town.

Not the steepest section of the trail.

Panorama of Wanaka from most of the way to the top.


We strolled through the 26 acre Pembroke Park across the street from our hostel after our Mt. Iron walk. This park is in the center of Wanaka and on the lake. It's an amazing contribution to this community!

For lunch we shared this delicious salad of quinoa, apple slices, walnuts, pumpkin & sunflower seeds, spinach, carrots, dried cranberries, and sweet potato with a refreshing vinaigrette.

We signed up for a "Happy Hour" Wanaka Lake cruise as a way to get views from the water. This one hour cruise included a glass of wine and crackers and cheese. The views were worth it and we also met Sarah and Rich from Seattle. We had a really good conversation with them and found out that Rich's parents moved to Bainbridge Island recently. We exchanged contacts and hope to see them again on the island.

Here are some pictures of the mountains encircling Lake Wanaka and a video that captures the town's public beach. Ya, it really covers about a mile of lakefront, all of it public!

This is the video that spans the entire public beach area of Lake Wanaka.

And we're off for a lake cruise.

Couldn't resist a close up of this spectacular mountain.

Wanaka—February 25, 2025

The weather forecast for today was for rain and wind beginning at 9AM and continuing until 2PM, and whoever is doing their forecasting (could it be NOAA?), was right on. We got out to Kai Whakapai for breakfast of poached eggs on toast with harissa sauce and two large flat whites before the rains hit. Then we spent the rest of day hanging out in our room as the rain gave Wanaka a good scrubbing, not that it needed it.

Kai Whakapai is our favorite cafe.

At 2PM it began clearing so we walked over to That Wanaka Tree, an icon here. It's a thing, and may be a law that visitors take a picture of this willow tree. On the walk to the tree, I took a picture looking over Pembroke Park, trying to capture the 26 acre expanse in the middle of the town.

On the way back from That Wanaka Tree I took pictures of the tile timeline that stretches about a 1/4 mile of the Lake Wanaka promenade. On our first day here, we took our time reading most of them. The pictures give a pretty good idea how long this timeline extends.

It was sprinkling on our way back from breakfast...

...and within minutes of getting "home" the rains began.

And this is the same picture 5 hours later.

Pembroke Park looking north.

The walk to That Wanaka Tree.

Ya, this is it.

The first timeline tile along the lakefront promenade.

The second tile provides a legend for the symbols.

You get a sense of time passing.

See what I mean?!

The last tile. They have room for more so....

Wanaka—February 26, 2025

Another sunny damn day in Wanaka! ;-) We walked down to Kai Whakapai Cafe for their fantastic buttery variety of huge scones and then over to Doughbin for their large flat white coffee. Clearly, we've already scoped out the tastiest places with the best deals in town. I had the bacon cheese scone and Marie had the date and orange zest scone.

We worked off our breakfast with a 6+ mile round trip walk from our room at Haka House Hostel to Wanaka Station Park and on to Waterfall Creek on Lake Wanaka.