Wanaka and Queenstown Arrival

It's been a few days since I have posted, it's hard to keep up to date when we are in a different place everyday! On Saturday (jan.31st), we left our comfy little place in Franz Josef and hitch hiked to Wanaka . 

We had a late start to our day because of rain. so by the time we got to Wanaka it was 6:30 in the evening. It was a lovely drive though! We got picked up by a nice Canadian who was driving through NZ on his holiday. Since he too was a tourist, we had many stops along the way! 

We stopped at a beach for awhile to stretch our legs and smell the ocean air. The rocks were beautiful! All different colors and shapes. Many people troll these beaches looking for jade stones. 

There were all sorts of places to stop along the road. This one was full of information about tides and how ships use them to travel. 

One stop was at a White Bait shop. White bait are about the size of minnows. They have similar breeding habits as salmon. Salmon travel back to fresh water to spawn, where as white bait travel back to salt water to spawn. Fishermen catch White bait in the sea, right when they are born, before they swim to the fresh water. So these fish, that are a delicacy on the west coast, are simple baby fish. 

Here's a picture of what they look like before they are prepared to eat... 

... And with a little egg, slapped on a piece of bread, you have yourself a white bait pattie! These are known around the world and people come to the west coast just to try it. Now I was extremely car sick from the crazy roads, so I didn't think a whitebait pattie would sit well with me... But the Canadian said it was all he had ever hoped for! 

Another beautiful pit stop on the way to Wanaca. 

We made it Wanaka and has some delicious Hawaiian pizza, which happens to be the most popular pizza here. We had no hostel booked because every other town we have been to, we could just walk into any hostel and easily get a room. Little did we know that there was a huge music festival going on in the next town over. With our huge packs, we walked to two different hostels, both said they were booked and that we had little hope for any other hostel. So we sat down and just started calling hostels. By the 8th and final hostel calling, God had graced us with one room. It was a quaint little double bed room, with pictures glued to picture frames... But it was a bed, so we couldn't complain! 

The next day, with a hostel already book, we hitch hiked to Queenstown, just an hour drives away. This time, a young Irish man picked us up and gave us all sorts of advice about Queenstown. You can always count on the Irish! :) 

 This is the view going down into the valley where Queenstown resides.

Hannah and I have been here for 2 days now. It's an awesome city! There is soucb to do and everything is in walking distance! Today, we went on job hunts all day and started opening up bank accounts so that we can get paid. We have a few promising opportunities, hopefully something will come out of them!