Our First Home-Away-From-Home: Wanaka 8/31-9/9 (New Zealand Dates)
Our first day in Wanaka, we got up and drove into the small downtown for breakfast and groceries. We got breakfast at the Urban Grind. They had this crazy hot chocolate that came with a whole bar of chocolate and was very sugary and delicious. I got eggs benedict with smoked salmon. We picked up groceries and then headed back to the house. I made a sandwich to watch the first Wake Forest football game, against the Utah State Aggies. It was a really good game, very back-and-forth, until the fourth quarter when we won with a forced fumble and interception. After the game, we walked into town by Lake Wanaka. Dinner was Mom’s barbecue chicken mac’n’cheese at home.
The next day was New Zealand’s Father’s Day, so Dad and I went on another Father’s Day run, like the one we went on in Chicago on America’s Father’s Day. We ran about four miles down by the lake. After chilling some and eating lunch, Dad, Jackson, and I went to the park across the street. It’s awesome that we have a park right across the street to practice field hockey, baseball, and other things. After practicing field hockey, we walked into downtown for dinner at Amigos (Mexican food). We needed to get school supplies to begin homeschooling, so we drove to Queenstown the next day about an hour away to get supplies at K-Mart, one of the only bargain marts in New Zealand. We drove into the town of Queenstown and walked around by the lake. We drove back to Wanaka, where Mom made broccoli cheese soup.
We finally started school on the third. After catching up with that in the morning, we drove into town to check out a climbing gym that Mom found. Back at the house, we had Dad’s burgers for dinner. We drove to the Blue Pools by Hawea Lake. They were small pools off the Hawea River, where the water was so clear that the fish were supposed to look like they were floating. We didn’t see any fish, but the water looked very blue. We stopped and drove through the town of Hawea on the way back to Wanaka. We stopped by the Wanaka Tree, the famous tree that stands out in the water when the water is high. The water was low when we saw it, so the tree was on the edge of the lake, but as far as trees go, it was a very attractive tree. Back at the house, we ate dinner and did our Fantasy Football draft. In the morning, Jackson and I kept up our schedule of school in the morning and after lunch, we went across the street for field hockey and golf respectively. We went to the Wanaka Recreation Center, where Mom had found a field hockey practice I could join. The players were very welcoming, especially two girls named Abby and Ellis. We had chicken for dinner back at home. The next morning, we watched more football, Packers vs. Bears. That afternoon, we went to this free Flipper Ball clinic at the rec center. It was really interesting; the sport itself was pretty fun (basically water polo), but there were some really annoying teenage boys in our group that wouldn’t listen to a word the man in charge said. We changed and went to Fu Dog, Chinese/Japanese/Asian. We got a spread of small things for the table: pork and prawn wontons, prawn dumplings, Mongolian beef, sticky pork belly, brussel sprouts with pork crackling, rice, and egg noodles. It was so good, almost as good as the dumpling house we found in Vancouver. We got dessert: matcha mascarpone coconut. Matcha is like a powdered green tea, mascarpone is like the filling in cannolis, and the coconut was toasted. It was very distinctive, but still amazing. The next day was Wake’s second game. I got my schoolwork out of the way to watch them play RIce, the smallest school in Division 1 football (Wake is second smallest). We were favored by 19 and eventually won by 30, but it was close for about the first quarter (we were tied at 14 each at the end of the first quarter). RIce’s quarterback got hit really hard and had to be carted off the field. That really seemed to shake everyone up; it certainly did for us that were watching at our house. It reminded me, and I think everyone, that no matter how fun football is to play and/or watch, there is always a risk and a cost. It made me feel bad about enjoying watching such a violent game, but there are many new rules in place to make it safer. We found out later that Wiley Green, the injured player, would move and feel his arms and legs, so it wasn’t a neck injury, which was a relief for everyone. We did a hike up Mount Iron, nothing huge, just an hour and a half round trip. The way up was pretty warm and in the sun, had some good views, and was challenging enough to make it interesting. The view from the top was amazing: the mountains in the background of Lake Wanaka with clouds around the peaks and the sun just above the horizon, flat plains in the other direction toward Queenstown, and even Lake Hawea in the distance. The way down was on the cold, shady side of the mountain however, so that part was kind of miserable, but it was still a very enjoyable hike. Back at the house after the hike and dinner, we started watching Iron Man 2. About halfway through, we paused and went to bed. We watched a few football games throughout the morning: Texas A&M vs. Clemson, LSU vs. Texas, and Miami vs. UNC. After lunch, we went to Wanaka Basecamp, the climbing gym Mom found, to climb its auto-belay section. Mom and Dad climbed as well and they were actually pretty good (it was still very entertaining to watch). The Dark Tower (an encased wall with glow-in-the-dark handholds) was the most challenging and the most fun. After climbing, Mom dropped us off at the house and drove to Queenstown to trade out our car for a bigger one. We finished Iron Man 2, made and ate dinner, and went to bed. This morning, we got up and started driving to Dunedin for a one-night trip.
“We carry our home within us which enables us to fly.”