Roy’s Peak Challenge January 03 2019

For The past two years every December I have travelled to New Zealand to escape the winter here and spend the summer time abroad. Also my partner, Jonny  has lived and worked in New Zealand for the past 6years.
This year I headed out 2days after my final winter show in December. Leaving Manchester airport on a cold Monday afternoon for a long 27hour flight touching down in Dubai and Sydney before arriving in sunny Christchurch where Jonny was waiting for me.
My goal this years was to achieve the iconic Roy’s peak walk in Wanaka having heard about it last year. So a few days after arriving I had booked us a trip down to wanaka
With an elevation of 1578m this 6.50kms walk is described as medium on the difficulty scale. Many glorious pictures have been taken of this scenic walk and I wanted to add  some to my collection. Luckily When we set off I still had jet lag so the half 4wake up call wasn’t all so bad and I’m rather glad we had an early start for the beautiful sunrise over the mountains. It took us four and a half sweaty hours to do the climb with plenty of scenic camera snapping along the way. Once we reached the top high cloud meant we weren’t able to view the bottom and we just missed out on the iconic shot of Roy’s peak however we were able to take many other shots which were just as beautiful to us. Not an easy walk however I would recommend to anyone who loves a challenge.
Back to wanaka in time for lunch it was a quick shower before our afternoon treat to cardrona hotel, one of New Zealand’s oldest and iconic hotels and they do the best grazing platter!  We soaked up the sunshine on our bean bags in the garden whilst our legs began to burn from our walk, nothing a pint couldn’t solve, or a G&T for me 😊 
After our amazing grazing platter we decided to head back to wanaka for a dip in the lake (soothe the tired muscles) and to see the famous wanaka tree... one of the most photographed trees in the world. And I have to admit this tree had quite the fan club and I can understand why with it’s unusual yet  tranquil setting. 
Our first adventure of New Zealand 2018/2019 complete and one to tick off my goal list . Xx