A friend and I decided to have a go at Wild Wire Wanaka during Chinese New Year 2019. It’s basically climbing up a waterfall via ferrata, which is basically using steel cables and clips so it’s pretty safe. My cousin did it and recommended it to us. There’s three different levels you can do, a beginner (whuss level), intermediate and advanced, they call them “Go Wild”, “Wild Thing” and “Lord of the Rungs”. If you’re a bit of a whuss and not that fit then you better try the Go Wild. We did the Wild Thing and that was a suitable level for the vast majority of people.
Wild Wire Wanaka is not something you’d do again and again but if you’re visiting Wanaka and looking for things to do, it’s definitely worth giving it a go. We booked online, it’s relatively expensive, NZD$249 per person for the middle one $599 for the Lord of the Rungs. That includes a helicopter ride back for the latter. But the total duration is around 5 hours so when you compare that to say something like a bungy jump which costs anywhere between $50 and $300, and lasts for a few seconds, it’s actually pretty good value.
Anyway you meet by the info center on Lake Wanaka or you can drive and meet there as we did. They might not show up right at the time they tell you, but there’s no hurry, you can’t get in the gate without them. It’s about a 20 minute drive from Lake Wanaka township. When you get there you go through a safety briefing and do a bit of a practice before you commence the climb up. You have to concentrate quite hard at first to remember to put the clips on the right way and any kind of lapse in concentration and it’s easy to do something wrong. Safety is paramount though and to my knowledge, there hasn’t been an accident here ever. You’d have to do something pretty stupid in order to fall here.
Going up isn’t that difficult, it’s just remembering to put the clips in the right places and the right way. You don’t need to be that fit or strong to get up here, but if you’re a couch potato and don’t do much exercise you might struggle. It’s basically straight up but you go quite slowly, I presume so people don’t rush and make mistakes, so you can take your time and enjoy what you’re doing, and the view. The guide we had was excellent, I think Jeremy was his name and he was very great with everybody. There’s places to take photos along the way and I carried a little Fuji X100F around my neck which is fine for getting up there. Definitely don’t take a big camera because it’ll just get in the way.
By the time you finish your safety demonstration, it’s about an hour. You climb for about 2 hours and then have to walk down then get drive back to Wanaka. Overall, I’d say Wild Wire Wanaka is one of the better things to do in Wanaka or Queenstown for that matter. It’s something different, not that touristy or crowded and whilst it’s not something you’d do on a regular basis, I’d definitely do it again. They provide lunch at the top and all in all it’s a good day out. We did at 12p.m which is the hottest part of the day and it’s not really in that much shade so make sure you take sunblock or you’ll get burnt. Wasn’t actually that hot as the temperature near the waterfall is a bit lower and not like being out in the open.
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