The remains of a woman missing since New Year's Eve have been found in a Central Otago river by a search dog.
Irina Yun, a 36-year-old from Auckland, went missing on December 31 last year attempting to tramp the Cascade Saddle track, from Mt Aspiring Hut to the Dart Hut on the Dart River.
She was last seen at 9.30am heading up the Cascade track.
A dog handler, Dave Krehic, who was involved in the latter stages of the original search, returned to the area last week to conduct a private search with his dog Stig and other search team members.
They found a femur and pelvis bone in the river bed, wedged between rocks.
The Dunedin coroner, an anthropologist, and a pathologist, examined the remains and confirmed they were of Ms Yun, Wanaka search and rescue coordinator Sergeant Aaron Nicholson said.
The original search combed the exposed and difficult high country on the route as well as gullies, river beds and gorges.
Her tramping pack was found but police called off the search after five days, concluding Ms Yun was extremely unlikely to have survived in the flooded Dart River. Next of kin and friends of Ms Yun, a Russian immigrant, had been told.
