Lake Wanaka Tourism

  • The scientist

    The scientist

    It was nearly twenty years ago when retired zoologist John Darby, having spent hours at his computer summarising his data on Antarctic and yellow-eyed penguins one day, wandered the short distance from his home to the Wānaka lakefront. There were the usual waterbirds  ̶  mallards, black-billed gulls, scaups, shags ­ ̶  but then he saw

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  • Wānaka Tree axed!

    Wānaka Tree axed!

    April 1, 2022: An act of environmental terrorism has left the town of Wānaka and the world stunned. ‘That Wānaka Tree’, as it has been dubbed by millions on social media, is perhaps the most famous  and photographed tree in the world. Or at least it was. The iconic tree was cut down and removed by an unknown assailant on the night of March

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  • Book review: Sled Dog Racing in New Zealand – A Photographic Odyssey

    Book review: Sled Dog Racing in New Zealand – A Photographic Odyssey

    By Teresa Angell We wrote about dog racing in Issue 2 of 1964 (March 2020) and featured photos by Teresa Angell, so we were pretty excited to see that she has published a full-length book on the subject. Sled dogs are just the best. Woof! Teresa explores our national sled dog scene from the sport’s

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  • Music Review: Silhouette – Alba Rose

    Music Review: Silhouette – Alba Rose

    Silhouette is the debut EP from Alba Rose, AKA Rosie Spearing. Originally from Wānaka and now based in Wellington, Rosie is known as the lead singer of the indie-pop band Corduroy. She also collaborated with composer and producer Bravo Bonez on the trip-hop project ARLS.  Alba Rose is her first solo project, and it continues

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  • Taking shape

    Taking shape

    Counting the real cost of a surfboard with Aotearoa’s most inland board builder. It’s as far from the coast as you can get. Yet, thirty minutes’ drive west from the country’s most inland town, Cromwell, there’s a persistent noise that is often mistaken by neighbours for an out-of-tune weed-whacka. It’s the sound of Paul Roach’s

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  • Green Mind

    Green Mind

    A grassroots history of sowing and mowing in Aotearoa. I left Wānaka in my little white Toyota campervan, bound for the North Island. The trip was equal parts long and tedious, novel and exciting. There were windy sections and straight sections, narrow mountain passes and expansive valley floors. As I drove and drove across our

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  • The festival season is upon us

    The festival season is upon us

    The 1964 guide to the best music festies of the South Island. Down here in the roaring forties, summer comes with the kind of long days and warm nights that lend themselves to the wearing of small amounts of clothing and to dancing in fields until the sun goes down, and then comes up all

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  • At the mercy of the winds

    At the mercy of the winds

    Up, up and away with NASA’s beautiful balloon. It’s ANZAC Day, 2017. I’m parked on the side of Kane Road, peering across a paddock strewn with pivot irrigators and over the Clutha River to the Wānaka Airport. There, a balloon shaped like an inverted teardrop is slowly filling with helium, cubic inch by cubic inch.

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  • There’s no safety like snow safety

    There’s no safety like snow safety

    On the slopes at the inaugural Ski Patrol Games. Two guys are skiing down a racecourse towing a log in a stretcher. One is out in front, steering, while the other follows, tethered to the rig by a rope. They are dressed in suits and ties. Snow conditions are marginal. The log is visibly heavy.

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