Sorry I haven't written for a week - its taken me that long to get over New Years!!! We had a fantastic night at Franz Joseph - only ending up going to two bars but my were they a laugh!! New years day bought big hangovers all round so didn't do much except eat and sleep! We left early on the morning of the 2nd and our driver was Spanky again who took me to Milford Sound a while back - nice to see a familiar face (although she'd seen us being drunkard on New Years Eve so had a laugh at us too!)

We drove down to a place called Makarora which lies at the top end of Lake Wanaka, we had a few stops on the way down including Lake Matheson where you can take pictures of Mount Cook, and the blue pools (where Leanne and I watched the boys freeze themselves stupid by getting in for a swim!) - where the water looks amazingly inviting but is actually very very cold! On arriving at Makarora we checked into our accommodation which was nice little triangular cabins, and headed off for a stunt helicopter ride! It lasted for half an hour which was pretty good value although Dave felt sick (the pilot was a bit of a nutter!) We only had the one night in Makarora before heading off to Wanaka which was just an hours drive south.

Before hitting Wanaka town itself we went to a funny tourist attraction called Puzzling World - It had a big maze that everyone seemed to get lost in and some illusion rooms which were funny. One of them made the person in one corner of the room look like a giant and the person in the other look like a midgit! They told us its a technique that they used on the Lord of the rings films to make the Hobbits look small. There are a few pictures of us there in the Wanaka folder anyway...

Checked in to a lovely backpackers called the Purple Cow and straight away extended my stay from 2 nights to 5! Fell in love with Wanaka - its smaller than Queenstown and right on the edge of the Lake with Mountain views. We had a great few days there, one day we hired bikes and took a picnic along the lake shore which was very chilled out - again the boys swam and leanne and I sunbathed. The weather has got lovely and hot over the last few days - hitting the late twenties which is a shock to the system but a good one! We found out that the National Mountain Biking Championships were on out at Treble Cone (a Ski resort nearby) so we hired a 4x4 and went there for the day. We hiked to the top as well - not as far as it looks in the photos due to the Ski lift by the way - but it was a great day out and nice to do something different.

Apart from that we had a chilled out time - making dinner together and eating out as a group on the balcony and wandering through the town. They have a great cinema in Wanaka where the seats are all sofa's and armchairs and in the middle theres an old car that you can sit in to make it feel like your at the drive in! They have some great ideas over here! Off to Queenstown again on Monday as It's Joan's birthday so a big night out in honor of that! Write again soon xxx