Wanaka- My Birthday!

My parents and I left Te Anau after a very successful Doubtful Sound trip and drove across to Queenstown for lunch..it seemed a great little town and I looked forward to returning in the winter. We then had a fab drive through the Cardrona Valley onto Wanaka.

Cardrona has a special meaning for us as it was the name of my grandparents house, so we stopped at the old Cardrona Hotel for some cake. Cardrona pretty much consists of the Cardrona Hotel and a ski field nearby..and its a fantastic drive through to Wanaka from Queenstown. Wanaka was lovely too, the lake is beautiful and although it was summer there was snow at the top of the mountains behind it which made it even more stunning.

The 3 of us enjoyed a walk to the top of Mt Iron where we had amazing views of the lake, Mt Aspiring National Park and the Cardrona Valley.

After a few days apart with our parents, Chris and I were reunited on the eve of my birthday. We met about half way between Haast and Wanaka and found a lovely spot by the beautiful Lake Wanaka to stay and spend the next day lazing around.

It was the quietest birthday I have ever had! We had a great big birthday brunch of smoked salmon and scrambled eggs sat by the lake admiring the turquoise lake and the snow capped mountains surrounding us..the sand flies stayed away which was nice! I was then ordered to sit outside while Chris transformed the van with balloons, party poppers and birthday cake!

The rest of my birthday is a bit of a blur..as we watched the sun go down we started the celebrations with a bottle of Rose we picked up in Blenheim the week before..it went down VERY quickly..so we opened another..and then another. We had a huge dinner planned of roast lamb, mint sauce and creamy mashed potato but unfortunately the drinking kind of took over and it was midnight and 5 bottles of wine down before we knew it. Oh dear. We thought about starting the meal but we were both in such a state we decided it wise not to. It turns out this was a decision well made as I then ended my 26th birthday in style by throwing up most of the wine I had just demolished. It was not pretty. Thankfully I then passed out very quickly.

I thought it was all over but at about 5am I was a suddenly awoken by a horrible retching sound from outside the van..then a very high pitch scream and another more ´manly´scream after..what on earth was going on outside the van!?? My head was pounding and I felt so awful I didn´t even contemplate going out to see..then I realised Chris was out there..was he being attacked or something?! Suddenly the van door opens and Chris shouts ´A possum just stole my shoe!' WHAT?! I very much doubted a possum had just stolen Chris´shoe..how and why?! Chris explained he had been vomiting outside when a possum ran into his feet and past him, this possum was apparently being chased by another possum and also ran into his feet and took one of his flip flops. Right. Not what you need when you´re throwing up in the middle of the night! So we both went outside and started searching for this stupid possum who had nicked Chris´flip flop. We found the flip flop pretty soon and Chris later realised perhaps the possum had NOT stolen his flip flop but maybe it had just fallen off..he was in such a drunk state he´d really thought the possum had taken it! What a night! It was an absolutely hilarious birthday!