Another Mountain

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HAPPY NEW YEAR.......

I hope you all had a good one. No doubt the bubbly was flowing as always. We are 13 hours ahead here, so when most of you were falling out of bed on NY eve we were in the throws of a New Year Kiwi style. It consisted of a bottle of wine in the hostel (Villa Maria for 4 pound a bottle, cannot be bad) whilst watching "The Sound Of Music" (it is a long story but Lou you would have been proud of us). We then took to the streets with the locals. Now when I say locals I mean it in the loosest sense as we ended up chatting to a Glaswegian, a Scouser (nice to see Stevie G being true to his roots), and their families. Mind you they had been living in New Zealand for over 20 years (but still managed to hang onto their accents).

In fact I am not to sure if we have even met a true local yet. When we first checked into our hostel I thought we where in Asia. Japs are everywhere, clearly they are taking advantage of the good exchange rates. When I cooked a stir fry in the hostel kitchen I felt like I had just been thrown to the wolves.

We then headed up to Cathedral Square to catch the end of the free concert (headlined by the mighty and the great Mr Bubbleman) and watched the fireworks. All in all it was a good night (and a tough New Years Day having to check out at 10:00).

Steve, Jane, Des and Jayne, it was your first NY without our company. I hope you did not have too much fun without us. Derek, I hope you managed to keep away from any irish bars! The world is not prepared for another "Nob Head" moment.

We are now back in our camper van and up in the Alps. Our campsite has free internet so we took the chance to dive on. Unfortunately they are a wee bit old so no chance of loading up our pics. The scenery today was superb (once the haze had cleared). Standing in the sun, looking at snow capped mountains and glacial lakes is a great way to spend the afternoon. We even splashed out for a cup of coffee at Lake Tekapo.

Bri, Happy Anniversary, hope you showed Winnie a good time (which does not mean a night in watching Man U).

Loved the cricket, choosing between SA and Oz was tough however I really got into the matches. Nice to see the Ozzies lose their crown. Talking of sport it is a shame we are going to miss all of the Super 14. I find it amazing that the All Blacks are so good when there are only 4 million people living here (and 40 million sheep, Steve perhaps you should consider moving out here, there is plenty to go around), however the few Maori's I have met were built like tanks.

I tried to persuade Rach to add something, alas she declined. Surprisingly she had nothing to say (a first).

Anyway, hope you all had a good break and enjoyed the festivities, bring on those diets.

R&R

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Comments

[Dawn]

Happy New Year to you both.