Any chance you can take the message about Wanaka off the noticeboard? The less people that know about Wanaka the better. Tom Cruise has already referred to it as his favourite place in the world in one of his films and the less publicity the better I say. Let all the tourist go to to Queenstown I say.

Just between you (editor) and me. Wanaka is brilliant, a really chilled out small town on a lake with the most stunning views of awesome mountains, that you can mountain bike down in the summer and ski down in the winter. The great beauty about it though is that the local council doesn't want to over develop it like it's noisy neighbour Queenstown. Wanaka only has about 5,000 residents. The only problem with this though is that it may become more expensive and exclusive. The lake district in NZ's South Island has the countries most expensive real estate and the people that are driving prices up are the Brits, Americans and the Aussies. So for we kiwis it means the place is becoming expensive as a lot of the buyers are cashed up foreigners. Anyway enough complaining about the expensive real estate, the place is wonderful, people have time to stop and talk in the streets and it has a wonderful magic about it.

I tried to buy land there in January but sadly missed out..... must have been fate. Even though I'm from the North Island the South Island is wonderful. 800,000 people in an area larger than England. Big sky country, the pace of life is very chilled and relaxed. Good food good wine, great micro climates if you know where to go, great fishing ..... brilliant. Although I live in Oz now, all my holidays are in kiwiland.