It was coffee and bacon roll with croissant in Wanaka to cheer us up on a very wet morning. Wanaka was lovely with all the action events that Queenstown provided but in a rather more civilised way. The town lay along the south shore of Lake Wanaka and when the sun finally made an appearance the ‘beach’ was soon full with campers drying out.

A beach party, band and fireworks were planned for that evening and we thought it would be good to stay. However all the sites were full and the only possible site was at Hawea about 12 km up the road.

This was a big family camping park on the edge of Lake Hawea which provided excellent fishing, both trout and salmon, on the fly or a lure. The local hotel was holding a New Year event called The Branding which we found about because all the young campers  were dressing up (or at least he girls were) and preloading with vodka etc. We walked to the village at about 7.30 after it had stopped raining. This was obviously the place to be at midnight but despite Mark’s best endeavours entry was not allowed—they had sold all 1,700 tickets and even the pleadings of “we have come all the way from England for this” did no good. We had to resort to a few photos over the security fence and listen to the music

They were arriving in coach loads but some had peaked too early and had to be forcibly ejected (he had written across his bare chest “if lost please call …..” and then 2 telephone numbers. The police took him away!)

We walked back to the camp site, had drinks around an open fire with some of NZ campers and after supper the heavens opened and so the plan to go to Wanaka was abandoned. 

Happy New Year!