A walk to a beautiful panorama, then to New Zealand's best cinema
Distance: walk, ~10km
Total Distance: 4385km
(Let's face it, the TD is going to get screwed up once I'm flying and touring across Oz & USA, so I'm fine with having estimated (~) distances)
Having called a whole bunch of people about my itinerary I decided to go for a walk. Mount Iron is a large hill sat between Wanaka and Albert Town, giving wonderful views of the surrounding mountains and lake. It was hot and slightly tiring, but the view was worth it. The view was so worth it.
YOU ALL NEED TO COME SEE WANAKA!!!
Heck, buy a house here- they've just built a load. You could buy a boat too, there were a couple for sale. Just come for the summer, rent a room, get a summer job in the tourist trade. On your days off you could go visit a glacier, or go into Queenstown.
I had a wee walk through the suburbs for the hill, down towards the lake. Nice place- not enough Dairys (NZ cornershops/kiosks) for my liking, but I guess that's new build suburbs for you. Two big modern architecture churches though- Catholics on one side of the road, Anglicans across the way on the other. I wonder if they have street parties on a Sunday. Or just glare at each other.
After being nosey I went down to the cinema to watch Star Wars again. The films great, I love it, but I really went to check out the cinema. The Pavilion, Wanaka. It's NZ's best, I've been told, along with Puzzling World, that it's the "Must Do" in Wanaka- and it is!
Old school cinema. The seats are sofa style, lots of leg room, a few fake cars if you want the drive in experience, a few actual sofas at the front. They have beer on tap, a selection of local wines (in real glasses! Not plastic! I had a Merlot for the first half), as well as locally made ice cream, local chocolate, fresh popcorn, their homemade you-MUST-try cookies (fresh batch at intermission), full barista set up...and much more.
First half? Intermission? Yes, they have an intermission! Half way through the film the switch it off and we all went out to find new snacks. Chocolate chip cookie, local ice cream, hot chocolate with 3 marshmallows (in a tea cup), and I was all set.
It's not consistently the most quiet cinema- everyone starts out with so much food and drink, and is so relaxed, there's bound to be a little noise. It was nearly full too. Apparently I was lucky, most people book ahead to ensure they get a seat, but there was room for one more. All the adverts before the film were from local companies- as in Wanaka companies- the people you passed in the street. Such a great change from the big scale, big budget, adverts of normal cinema.
And in total, with food and drink, and in 3D, (and given that cinema tickets here are half the price of them in the UK) I payed less than I'd pay for just a ticket to a 3D film in the UK. Beauty.
Now we're going through the VHS tapes in the hostel again. We watched Cast Away last night. It was entertaining trying to explain having to rewind a tape to a 22 year old. I'm 25, surely you remember VHS?! There's loads of tapes in the hostel for some reason.
Yesterday found out the guy who owns the hostel was an extra in the Hobbit too. There's not many people this far south, I imagined they'd have needed nearly all of them for the Lord of the Rings!
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