Making Friends with Dogs and Ducks

Today we decided to have lazy day with nothing planned except a 3 hour drive to Wanaka.  After a sleep in, we were slowly getting ready for the day when a local dog wandered over to our unit to say hello and get some belly rubs.

The friendliest floof

Eventually, we said goodbye to the friendly dog and headed off to our next destination.  Before leaving Fox Glacier, we drove back down the back road towards Lake Matheson to get one last glimpse of Mount Cook in the distance.

After taking a few snaps in the morning light, we took off on our journey to Wanaka.  To break up the drive, we took a few short detours to explore the Haast River and and nearby waterfalls along the way.

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I can't remember which waterfall this is...

Maybe the Roaring Billy Falls?

Classic Chris decided to spend his time finding the biggest rock possible to throw into the water.

And I spent my time taking photos as usual...

Crazy photographer!

A few hours later we made it to Wanaka.  After checking in to our accommodation we headed down to Speight's Ale House for a classic pub dinner near the lake.  Although the food was great, the best part was getting to watch two border collies patiently waiting outside the window for their owners to finish their dinner.

What cuties!

After dinner we grabbed a gelato at Black Peak Gelato and walked down to the lakefront.  We noticed a couple of tourists feeding the seagulls and didn't think too much of it until a few minutes later when one of the seagulls got bored of eating bread and decided to steal a nearby duckling from its mother instead.  Although this is a natural thing to happen in the wild, I freaked out and immediately went to save the duckling so the little kids who were near the lake didn't have to watch this happening.

What ensued next was a stressful five minutes of me crying and chasing the seagull away from the duckling which it kept dropping, then trying to heal the quacking mother and her other ducklings find the stolen duckling.  Luckily I was able to reunite the duck family and shoo the seagull away, but it was at a cost of losing most of my chocolate and mango gelato all the way down my jumper and pants.

With the day's drama at an end we finished our gelato and headed back to our motel to wash my clothes and get a good night's sleep.

At least this duck was happy...

Lake Wanaka at dusk