Our plan for the third day in New Zealand was to drive from Lake Tekapo to Wanaka but make a detour to Mount Cook (Aoraki is the Maori name also used interchangeably). We planned to do some hiking and make some stops along the way then end the day in Wanaka.

We headed west from the Grand Suites around 8am. It was another beautiful morning. I filled up with gas as I was at about half a tank and didn’t want to risk getting too low in the more rural areas we would be traversing.

It took a little over two hours to drive to the White Horse Hill Campground parking lot which is close to the main hiking trails. The drive was spectacular with misty mountains and lakes along the way.

The parking lot was busy around 10:15am when we arrived but we found a spot. Parking costs NZ$5 per hour there unless you want to park further back down the road on the side and hike in to the parking area (we did not).

We set off on the Hooker Valley Track. I told my wife it would take about an hour, but that it was mostly flat. That turned out to be mostly true, but there were some stairs after the first swing bridge and after a while, she decided to sit and wait for me to hike out to the second swing bridge which is as far as you can get right now as the bridge is under repair. The views were amazing although we technically could not see Mount Cook on this trail with the bridge being closed.

After we got back to the car, I let my wife rest her ankle and I quickly hiked the out and back Kea Point track. It was mostly uphill going out and downhill coming back. It took me about an hour round trip and my reward at the end was a view of Mount Cook in the distance.

At this point, we were both pretty wiped out and decided to continue on our way to Wanaka. We made a stop at a lavender farm across from the shore of Lake Pukaki and treated ourselves to an ice cream.

We drove along the Lindis Pass which provided some more amazing views from the car and rolled into Wanaka around 2:30pm. We were staying at the Edgewater Hotel and I’ll have a review in the next post.

After two days of driving through the South Island, I was dreading the 10 hours of driving I had scheduled for the next two days to get to Te Anau, Milford Sound and back to Queenstown. It wasn’t that the driving was difficult, but my wife tends to get narcoleptic and I have to concentrate on the road. Every stop to admire the views just adds more time to drive. We also had planned an early Milford Sound cruise which would have required a 5am wake up in Te Anau. Given all of that, I thought about perhaps doing a fly/drive/fly tour instead either from Wanaka or Queenstown. Then I could cancel our hotel in Te Anau the next night and just book something for one night in Queenstown a day earlier than planned.

I asked about this at the hotel and they were super helpful with information. I called a local tour company in Wanaka called Southern Alps Air and they had availability for their morning tour the next day. I figured I would check the hotels first then book the tour online if I could find us a place to stay. I checked all the major chains where I have points that have hotels in Queenstown (IHG, Hilton and Accor). There was availability at the Hilton and Holiday Inn, but those are a bit outside of town. In the end, the best deal I found was at the Sofitel where I could book directly into a suite using a suite night upgrade and pay the regular room price of US$350, which sounds pricy but it only cost me 16,000 Accor points as they have a cash value of about 2.3 cents per point. The suite included breakfast as well. I did have to pay for parking but the hotel was very close to where we would be spending our final three nights at Eichardt’s Private Hotel.

I booked the Southern Alps Air tour once I had the hotel confirmed. It was not cheap at about US$450 per person, but I was able to cancel the previously booked Milford Sound cruise which at least got me US$200 back. I’ll have a review of the fly/cruise/fly tour in a later post.

In the end, I was too late to cancel the hotel at Te Anau, but I had booked it through the Rove Miles portal for $150 and still earned about 4,000 Rove Miles. It was worth the cost to avoid 10 hours of driving.

Once we got that sorted out, we decided to explore Wanaka a bit. From the hotel, we could walk along the Lakeside Trail and mostly along the lake itself all the way into town. My wife enjoyed searching the lakeshore for interesting driftwood and I took a few pictures.

In town, we stopped at Kai Whakapai, a restaurant and craft beer bar for a well-earned beer and a decent pizza. My wife’s ankle was throbbing from all the hiking and walking so we decided to try and get a taxi back to the hotel. The bar phoned one for us and “Gary’s Taxi” picked us up and drove us back to the hotel for NZ$25 which seemed a bit steep but it was only option besides walking so we paid it.

It was probably the day we walked the most. Between all the hikes and walks, I took over 19,000 steps. We definitely slept pretty well that night.

Up Next: Edgewater Hotel Wanaka Review

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