NZ Day 9 - Pastries and Packing

Jon and I got up early to go for one last run before hanging  up our our running shoes for a good 5 days while we do the Milford Track.

When we got back we packed up the van for the last time and drove back into Wanaka, where we promptly invested the $24 we saved by Freedom Camping in the local bakery.

Today we let the kids ride in the camper van in what we’ve called ‘bed-mode’ - I’m glad we hadn’t realised we could do this until the last day as it would have been next to impossible to lever the kids from the van (and their bed) to do any hikes or activities..

A few bites of our bakery treats gave us the energy boost we needed to climb up Mt Iron - a 4.5k steep hike that delivered lovely vistas over Wanaka. 

Then our only remaining driving mission was to get into Queenstown by 1ish to start a lot of not-so-fun organisational things, including dumping the camper van waste water, refilling with gas & diesel, picking up Clare from the airport (actually that bit was fun - it’s nice to see Clare again), then doing the shopping for our hike, unpacking then re-packing our hiking backpacks, doing the washing of clothes and our very grubby selves. We had the luxury of a not very luxurious overpriced cabin in central Queenstown but we really didn’t have time to look around  - we were busy from 1pm to 10pm on our chores. We’ll get to have a day to explore and do some fun Queenstown activities after we’ve done our hike.