Wanaka Life

Hello All,

So it’s probably about time, or more likely well overdue, that I posted a blog entry and touched base with all of you. So where to start?!

How about with Wanaka? Wanaka is a rather magical place and I wish each and every one of you – perhaps not all at once – could visit and experience its majesty. But where magic is elusive, I’ll try instead to paint a vivid picture of what Wanaka and its local Wanakleans are like.

Wanaka, if anything, is parochial. With wonderfully quaint shop names such as ‘Big tums, little bums’(a toddler clothing store), local newspaper advertisements such as ‘Stich ‘n Bitch; Craft and conversation night, every Monday from 7p.m.’, a culture of constant greeting and a population where one is on first name terms with local businesses, Wanaka most definitely earns the title of parochial. The local cinema still conducts intervals during each performance – at precisely half way through the movie, regardless of the scene or actors’ sentence - where freshly baked cookies are ready for customers to take back to their leather couches for the second half of the movie and unfinished sentence. And perhaps my favourite parochialism is that the lingerie store ‘Sassy Pants’, had its sign vandalised over a year ago and rather than correct it, the owners seem to share the humour of the vandals… Sassy Pants, is and has been missing the S and A for some time, and reads, in comic genius: ‘ASS PANTS’.

Wanaka is also a lifestyle. The quality of life is second to none and nearly all Wanakleans that I’ve met hold true to the belief that life is to be lived and enjoyed, and that work is their means of providing such a way of life. The town, in my opinion, is filled with lightness, pleasure and joy, and without the past-faced, money-centric attitude of big cities. People work to live, rather than vice versa and smiles are worn more than frowns, which is a welcome improvement to the faces of the London Undergound. 

So what have I been doing? With snow-covered peaks and mornings of fog which freeze to your jacket while cycling – no exaggeration - Winter has officially arrived in Wanaka and marks the end of my climbing season. I’ve hung up my harness in exchange for some warm gloves and a helmet, and have begun to explore the mountain biking trails which wind their way through the forests and craggy peaks. Having recovered from a bike accident 4 weeks ago, my ribs have now returned to their regular pain-free self and I’ve learned to make friends – and mostly avoid – large white vans who’d rather break suddenly and forget to indicate than look for bicycles in their mirrors. But as the saying goes ‘Don’t let the fear of being hit by a two-tonne vehicle stop you from what you enjoy’… And I proposed not to. So far I’ve cycled nearly 1500km while in Wanaka and with the beauty of the mountain tracks, I plan to do a fair few kilometres more.

And with a river at the foot of my garden – where police are currently investigating some deer hunters who decided to up their hunting experience with the addition of a high-powered speed boat -  I’ve also taken to fishing with the company and experience of a Czech comrade. And just for the fun of it, I’ve started to learn the language in return for my English lessons. With hospitality Japanese mastered and please’s, excuse me’s, your welcome’s and the customary bows and hai’s refined to perfection, Czech seemed the obvious next step in my pursuit for world domination, and my being the world’s politest dictator. So life has been rather good recently. My pace of life has slowed to that of Wanaka, as has my way of life similarly.

And with June being the quietest of Tourism months, work has slowed down from a 60-hour week – hence my recent silence - to a 15-hour week and I have plenty more time to go hiking, read a few books, make a few fires, sample a few drinking establishments, cycle a few kilometres  and more importantly, make several lengthy and much desired skype calls.

So with this brief update – it’s always so hard to write lengthy passages about lengthy passages of time, I much prefer writing about the small details of a situation – I hope you’ll forgive my recent silence and you’ll decide to write me a brief message by whatever technology we’re linked by and arrange a time for us to catch up or better yet, just call me!!

Missing you huge amounts,

Yours always,

xx

Some additional photos:

Cycling track and Clutha River behind my house.

A man's walk in wardrobe.

Wanaka's bustling High St.



A Winters morning.