As I'm behind with some things I decided to give my muscles another day of rest from the hike two days ago and spend a good part of the day catching up online and just enjoying the place and a slower pace.
I walked into the kitchen on the 17th to see a guy in there who had been there the night before when everyone was having internet problems. Cassidy. In talking with him I noticed he didn’t have an accent (at least to my ears), and asked him where he was from. "Utah" he said. We got talking and I found out he’s biking New Zealand. At least parts of it. The mountainous parts, though. He asked for hike suggestions and I told him about the Rob Roy track and that he could join me if he liked. As we both would be here a few days and it was open-ended how long we stayed we could plan to do it on the 18th, or just see. Turns out we'd end up doing it on the 19th.
That evening around 5:00 PM I left the campground to head to town and walk around a bit. I really like Wanaka. More than Dunedin which has been my favorite up to this point. If I had to live somewhere in New Zealand it would be Wanaka. Hands down. Great scenery, great hiking, close to Queenstown which has great hiking and stuff to do. I like a lot of the neighborhoods I’ve seen so far, the town seems new, not too big, and has a community feel to it. I like it.
On the night of the 18th, Cassidy asked me if I wanted to join a group he’d learned about online that was going to look at the Aurora Australis on a hilltop outside of town. I asked him if he trusted the group, joking that we could get jumped. Actually, I didn’t think much about this as I trusted the situation. It was cold at top, but the view of the stars was amazing. We met a few people up there that we couldn’t really see as people kept light down to a minimum for star and aurora viewing.
We took pics of the Aurora Australis which you couldn’t really see with the eye very well, but the camera made it look amazing. Admittedly, at times, I looked over at the faint light along the mountain edge thinking, "Would I have noticed this had it not been pointed out to me?"