Tuesday 25th Christmas Day

Christmas Day produced very similar weather but perhaps even hotter! Hilt & Anne picked us up shortly after 10:00 and we headed off for a fairly strenuous uphill walk to Diamond Lake with stupendous views over Lake Wanaka and the surrounding mountains. We then drove down to the lake near our camp site for a very welcome cooling swim. After a short rest we headed off to walk the 3.5 miles to David & Jess’s house for Christmas dinner. It was very hot and quite hard work so we were pleased to receive a text from Hilt offering to pick us up at Wanaka marina which cut out the final (uphill) mile. Whilst we had been swimming and walking the Dixon clan had been liloing down the Cl

utha river and Hilt had been fishing catching a superb specimen 3 lb rainbow trout. We arrived at the Dixon residence and after a fairly quiet start we were into a very competitive game of pool volleyball quickly followed by champagne and a fabulous barbeque of crayfish, prawns, duck breast, butterfly lamb with numerous accompaniments and of course several excellent NZ wines culminating in a terrific Peregrine Pinot Noir. No sooner had dinner ended than we started a round the house game of petanque which I guess meant four rounds. Enthusiasm was more in evidence than skill or expertise but it was highly enjoyable. By now it was dark and David produced some fireworks to light up the sky and end a wonderful evening. We slumped into out taxi and headed back to the camp site. A great end to a wonderful day and many, many thanks to David & Jess for such great hospitality and excellent food and wine.