Today we hiked the Mount Iron Track, about 5km up to the top of a rocky knoll just outside of Wanaka. Mount Iron is called a roche moutonnee, a rock formation created by the passing of a glacier. The hill is said to resemble and old french style wig that was smoothed with sheep fat – ergo the moutonnee.
Locals call Mount Iron ‘Wanaka’s outdoor gym’. Most of the people we encountered were running or walking their dogs!
From the summit there are excellent 360-degree views of the The Pisa range, the Upper Clutha Basin, both Lake Wānaka & Lake Hawea and the Southern Alps/Kā Tiritiri o te Moana.
We are heading back to the wop wops tomorrow, so we took advantage of the larger grocery store to re-provision. The New World provided some fresh meats, cheeses and vege and the Bottle-O had some nice New Zealand wines.
And Dave found a gluten free meat pie, which was just as good as the regular ones!
Today we are about half way through the trip and our condo has in suite laundry so we are taking the afternoon to relax, refresh some clothes and regroup before we head off to see glaciers tomorrow.