First day on the road

Heading North out of Queenstown was a good experience in a few ways. Firstly, our newly aquired rental vehicle is far superior than our van in Australia, the doors shut properly, it has a heater that works and even a dvd player. Granted we only watched the dvd of our bungee but still. Secondly, the road itself. There doesn't seem to be any bragging in New Zealand about how good places are so we don't know what to expect. What we get are the greatest driving roads I've ever been on.
Just a few moments north of Queenstown was our first stop, Arrowtown. I beautiful little place with all slate houses and small shops and a meandering arrow shaped river next to the mountain alongside. It reminded me of a quiant English village a bit, but newer. This is another Lord of the rings location but as I'm not really clued up on these things I couldn't say where or what was in the films. What I do know is that there was gold found nearby and an influx of Chinese came as a result. Unfortunately, we didn't have time to go and take a look at the nearby Chinese settlement that has now been renovated. Next time.
Onwards and upwards. We drove alongside a gorgeous and huge lake, called Hawea I think, for quite a while. We stopped off for jaw dropping views a few times. It really is amazingly good looking here. It's also almost deserted too. New Zealand is slightly bigger than the UK and only has a tenth of the population, most living on the North Island. This makes for most places and roads being all to us and I like it a lot.
Our first taste of a New Zealand campsite is at Wanaka. The site itself doesn't quite meet Australia standards for quality but the view beats it hands down. Lake Wanaka is where the town gets it's name, and what a lake. We can see the view of the mirrored water with snow covered mountain backdrop from our van and seeing the sun drop down here is stunning. Life is good. Very good. Wanaka is also a ski town and we pass numerous ski resorts as well as ski fields that you just go on yourself and aren't served be ski lifts and the such.
There are quite a few Germans and French here, probably because it looks like the Alps, and pretty much everyone is really friendly including the locals. There just seems a better feel here, more welcoming than in parts of Australia for definite.
After one day on the road we've seen some amazing stuff and only driven about 60km! We really have to make some ground if we're going to make it back up to Auckland in about 8 days. The following day we do make some ground, and what a day it turns out to be.