Mt. Aspiring Hotel Wanaka

... for &#8211; the game being dubbed by the media as 'One Shot to Glory.&#8217; Bahrain started the game really well and probably should have commanded a lead before Rory Fallon headed home off a corner just before half-time. Cue pandemonium in the bar (a place called Woody&#8217;s) rarely seen outside of rugby. <br><br>The second half flowed along with the beers, banter and the Kiwi keeper making a penalty save. A real cup-tie in every sense ...

... had lots of stories to tell during the hike. Sandi and Clare made a great discovery... Snickers melted in enjoyed hot chocolate with Baileys. Yum. The weather was beautiful. The scenery was amazing (pics speak for themselves). A couple of background stories below. The Routeburn Track gets its name from the route up the burn, which is like a creek. This is the only one of the "Great Walks" that is not a government ...

... of the rings scenes shot here apparently. We walked around Lake Sylvan and back via old tramline. It is a lovely forest walk and we saw lots of birds, and of course the lake. Stopped and had a sitdown at Diamond lake and admired the view - had done enough exercise by this point! Jack drove a bit on the way back but not very fast or for very long and panicked when he saw a car in the distance - which was parked. Jack: My horse was alled Tom and had the ...

... gravity powered go karts, It was great fun and Yvette even enjoyed it. We had lunch of chees,e ham and tomato sandwiches at a supposed LOTR film site, of course when you read into it more it's actually just near a place that appeared for a few seconds in the film. The site was on a sort of beach overlooking the lake with some scrubby trees acccessed by a steep single track gravelly road. On the way down we met a huge yellow bulldozer thing coming the other ...

... high point of the walk at 1255m some 12.5km away. We head up through the rainforest across rope bridges and creeks, to immaculate walking huts where people can pay to stay, much like a hostel. The upper part of the walk takes us round to view a second mountain range which are separated by huge U-shaped valleys carved by ancient glaciers. I probably won't describe much of today in any detail as we did the walk from the Routeburn Hut all the way ...

... too sure what the impact of this will be on our body cells, it did keep the sandflies away (I subsequently learnt). Preparations for Funyak included supplies of warm fleece layers, a wetsuit, booties and another fleece layer if you wanted it. We were taken by bus to the harbour where we boarded our jetboat for the ride to the Dart's famous braided river system. The jetboat ride was enjoyable but not nearly as exciting as Shotover Jet ...

... the start could be round the next corner!"<br><br> <br><br>About an hour later (!!!) we came to a sign, and saw some cars parked. 'Hallelujah' we thought (this being the festive season!), this must be Rasberry ...

... loved it instantly.<br><br> <br><br>Our first impression was that it looked like one of the nicer European ski resorts, just without the snow at the moment!<br><br>Nice alpine buildings, good cafes, bars &amp; restaurants, and even the odd ...

... circumnavigations and the fulfilment of many lifetime ambitions, capped with new year under the southern cross. ( if the sky stays clear!!) We wish you all a very happy and peaceful 2005, we thank our current tenants and look forward to a flood of prospective new ones for February (any takers, let us know!!) and to seeing you all again in March. We also hope to be able to reveal the next move by the end of January.