Our favourite part of New Zealand

It's Tuesday morning after the Easter weekend and we're about to drive over to Christchurch for the flight to Sydney. We've had a great time in Wanaka with brilliant weather and wonderful scenery. Yesterday we walked up Mount Iron, a hill on the edge of Wanaka, amd confirmed for ourselves why this is our favourite part of New Zealand.

We also got a good view of Wanaka, which we were to add to in the afternoon with a jet boat ride up the Cluthra River.

On Saturday we visited Queenstown but it was so crowded in contrast to Wanaka that we didn't stay long. On the way there we had watched bungy jumping and later went to Arrowtown, a quaint ex-gold mining village, though again fairly crowded. However, we heard the normal 6,000 population of Wanaka rises to over 30,000 at Christmas and the New Year. From June onwards it is also a popular skiing area - think about it!

Sunday was a great contrast as we drove into Mount Aspiring National Park - the mountain is the second highest in NZ - the snow-covered peak in the top picture. The road was unsealed and included driving through fords and over rather rickety wooden bridges.

On Friday evening we had been to the cinema - quite unusual for us - to see Miss Potter. It only had 70 seats, 3 of which were in a Morris Minor convertible! The rest of the seats were a mixture of couches and comfy chairs and it was possible to have a meal during the interval. The bizarre structure on the roof is to promote a film about sheep - something you can't avoid in NZ as there are 4 million people and over 40 million sheep.