Falling in love with Hawea

Sunday 2 February

Woke to a long sunrise - it takes the sun a good while to pop up over the mountains round here… an hour or more after first light before the shadows finally dissipate.

Had a wander in Wānaka and early lunch at Scroggin (thanks for the tip, Jonny Webster) then headed back to Banjo at Mountain Spirit for a siesta… some days the constant travel just catches up with you.

Our big excitement of the day was to take our inflatable Razor kayak out on Lake Hāwea for its inaugural outing! It took about 10-15 minutes to set up and carry down to the waters edge. Thank goodness for the SUP pump - wouldn’t fancy inflating this manually!!! Louis ordered this particular kayak from Australia as it had such awesome reviews - it is made of the same materials as a lifeguard RIB and the base is as stable as a full size paddleboard so even I will struggle to fall in!

We went out for an hour or so and could not get over how comfortable and easy the kayak was - nor how stunning the lake was. The aquamarine waters sparkled in the sun and felt silky to the touch.

Back at the beach I had a quick dip and Louis swam about 2.5km and we watched the motorised parachute guys swirling around. It was 7ish when we packed up the kayak and left the lakeside - it was a lot easier than we recalled from our trial run at setting up & packing down on the drive in Blockhouse Bay.

Quick dinner of cheese & ham toasties then we headed up the mountain a wee way to enjoy the golden hour and get savaged by midges! I wandered around the property after that, being fascinated by the huge number of different trees planted there - it was like a British park or a botanical garden with so many varieties (mostly non native). I loved seeing the sweet chestnut trees with the chestnuts firmly wrapped in their spiky casings until autumn. I strolled past the chook enclosure and the 6 ladies and their cockerel came running over full tilt - clearly hoping I had food!

All tucked up in bed a few hours later when Jonny messaged to say there was a small aurora to the south - barely visible to the naked eye, we did manage to capture it on camera - wow, just wow! 🥰