Well here we are a couple of weeks into our Central Otago adventure, I would be lying if I said I didn't have a couple of sleepless nights wondering what on earth we were doing, leaving all our family and friends and venturing off into the South in the midst of winter where the temperatures are a whole lot colder than anything we're used to, however I'm happy to say that now I feel settled in our new, warm, cosy house & confident that we made the right decision to come. Our first days welcome to the area consisted of a rather large earthquake, the noise of which was almost as frightening as the quake itself, luckily no damage was done in the local areas & we can just put it down to another experience. The first of our visitors arrived after having to cancel our tramping expedition, the weather around Cromwell was fine & sunny but in the mountains it was a different story, we did make a couple of further attempts to do a shortened version of our tramp, even getting as far as the start of Mt Aspiring hut walk but the water pouring off the surrounding hills into the fords that our car would have to negotiate on our way out made us think again, so it was back into the car and head for home. With all thoughts of tramping put aside we then set to and explored the surrounding areas, first up St Bathans, an old gold mining sluicing area where a beautiful blue lake has formed, the colour due to the minerals in the soil, certainly something to see, then after a walk around the lake there's the historic Vulcan Hotel to be visited for a well deserved drink. The following days were spent walking in the hills that rise up on either side of our valley & with the weather remaining unsettled we woke one morning to find the hills topped with a beautiful coating of snow, quite a sight for all of us from the flat Waikato country we're used to. Sadly our guests had to leave without ticking another item off their bucket list, the first time in many years that we've come south and not be able to achieve our goal. Meanwhile though, Mot & I had made contact with a local tramping group & last Wednesday morning we set off early to meet them for a tramp in the hills around Arrowtown, it was a beautiful walk with lovely, friendly locals who are absolute mountain goats, 5-6 hour tramps are what they call easy! We chose a good day to go, there were a couple of birthdays to celebrate so at lunchtime out came the mulled wine (kept warm in a thermos) & walnut cake topped with blue cheese, all as we sat around in the most beautiful scenery imaginable, magic! These very kind people have now invited us to join their Monday group (very easy tramps 3-4 hours) as well as continuing with the Wednesday group, a great opportunity for us to see places we would never know existed. Yesterday we drove to Alexandra to start the Roxburgh Gorge cycle trail, unfortunately it doesn't go right through yet, at about 10 kms you can arrange for a boat to take you further through the gorge to complete the trip to Roxburgh. We chose to go in and out again which was a spectacular ride & good going both ways as you get to see everything from a different perspective. We'll save the Roxburgh end for another day. We've managed to fit in a couple of games of golf which have been really enjoyable if not good for the handicap, plenty of courses around to play on, finding those that don't charge an arm & a leg is the problem. Well it's off for a bike around the lake, missing everybody, lots of love xxxx