I got some more photos from earlier this year at Ruapheu off my mum.

Okay I have way to many pictures from my weekend away in Christchurch to post online but here are the quick highlights.

At 9am on Saturday I flew to Christchurch with my mum for the weekend.

Upon ariving the first thing we did was go to a wildlife reserve.

It was kinda like a zoo but only featured New Zealand animals.

It had three sections: Wild New Zealand, Agricultural New Zealand and Bird New Zealand or something like that:

Wild NZ was the best of the three sections.

First I made friends with a very friendly wallaby. I don’t normally call things cute. But this guy was very cute.

In the Wild New Zealand section they had an old remote tramping hut. So just to show you how cool NZ tramping is here it is from the outside, and below from the inside:

And most importantly the out house:

The Agricultural New Zealand section was cool with lots of farm yard animals. I mistook a donkey for a large sheep. A black goat tried to make friends with my camera and a very friendly clydesdale horse also tried to eat me and my camera.

In the birds section I got to see up close a number of Kiwi, and other NZ birds including our famous Kea or Green Parrot:

And a Morepork:

After the adventures at the wildlife reserve we went and looked at the centre of Christchurch including the Square, Lincoln University, and New Brighton beach.

On Sunday we headed to Lyttelton through an awesome tunnel and then back over the Port Hills. After that we decided to head out to Mt Hutt for a look. Little did I know that the access road to Mt Hutt was a 20km dirt mountain road, and I only had a 1000cc rental car. Fun!

This is coming down the road. It was plenty wide. But really rough and bumpy.

Mt Hutt Ski Field

The Snow Bunny in his natural habitat.

Okay, I have had a few friends ask me about my goggle image. Well this is what I saw. It is the reflection which has be reflected back to how I would have seen it with the Pinnacles on the right and the top of the Waterfall Express chair on the left, with the Moro Terrain Park in front of me, and the Valley T-Bar off to my right (out of shot).

Because of some changes in plans I got to go skiing for a second time!

Don’t be fooled by the nice photos below the day started in much worse weather.

I left Wanganui at 6.30am to drive to Ruapehu and I arrived just before 8.30am. The weather was average to terrible driving up to the mountain. Snow in lots of places (not as bad as a week ago though) and lots of rain.

When I got to the base of mountain the upper mountain lift facilities were on hold. Because of this I decided to wait at the bottom of the mountain for an update on their opening status. This wait lasted almost a whole hour before I decided to head up the road at 9.20am.

In my hour of agony and dilemma I came very close to heading around to Turoa as it had more facilities open then Wakapapa. I was lucky that I didn’t though because it was only open for two hours before the weather packed in and closed the ski field.

Anyway back to the story. Like last week the road up to the ski field was closed unless you hired chains for your car. Chain hire costs $25 and there was quite a queue of cars waiting for chains to be fitted. I paid for my chains at 9.20am and then waited until 9.40am for them to be fitted. At 9.30am while I was waiting, and after I had paid, they decided to open the road up until Day Park 10. But no because I had already paid for chains I still had to get them fitted and go up the now open road on them.

This was a minor pain in itself but never mind chains are very helpful on mountain roads and because I was on chains I would be able to go to one of the higher and closer car parks when I got up the mountain. Sweet! However, when I got up the mountain I was directed to park at Day Park 10 despite having chains and arguing with the parking attendant. (I was told later he was wrong and I was right.) I was not happy about this for two reasons. The first is that I was made to hire chains that I did not need, and secondly I was forced to park low down on the mountain just because I was 2WD and the parking attendant was blind to the fact I had chains on!

Anyway. I couldn’t be bothered waiting for a bus so I walked the kilometer or so up the road to the Top of the Bruce. Here I hired gear and passes. The upper mountain was still on hold so they were only selling lower mountain passes. GRRRR I thought. By this time the weather had cleared a lot. After getting my gear sorted I headed out to head up to the top of the lower mountain. Well I ended up in a queue for this chairlift for close to 45mins! By this time it was approaching 11am! Yes I had been on the mountain for over two and a half hours and I hadn’t even got to go skiing yet.

When I finally got onto the chairlift they decided to open the Upper Mountain. When I had purchased the lift passes they had told everyone if the upper mountain opened everyone would have to go back and pay more. However, everyone on the mountain, including myself just headed for the upper mountain lifts without the extra passes. We had had enough waiting! There were at least 100 of us wanting to go higher up the mountain and it was not our fault they hadn’t sold us the right passes so thankfully the ski field operators saw the sense in letting us go higher!

After all this the weather cleared and the skiing was great. I skiied for just under five hours and now two days later I am still paying the pain for it. Sore legs, knees, bruised side and motion sickness is still mucking about with my sleep. But it was great. And fully worth it. Except for the chains!

Check out the reflection in the goggles. Nothing but snow and sky!

Note to self: When taking photos remember to smile!

To go off the edge or not. That is thy question.

Snow. Snow and more Snow!

Okay so tonight I am back in Palmerston North. A whole day earlier then planned but I should be able to get more work done up here then in Wellington.

I came back up to Palmerston North with two other friends and because the weather was good; we decided to go over the Rimutakas and through the Manuwatu Gorge (see yesterday’s blog for other comments).

Looking South from the top of the Rimutaka Road

A zoomed shot looking south.

Brad on the top of the Rimutaka Hill looking to the north.

Brad back in the car before driving off. Looking sideways at friend who is taking a photo of him drinking water. How odd.

Snow, glorious snow on the top of the Rimutakas.

The wind turbines (Tarauras) as seen from Woodville.

The amazing Manuwatu Gorge.

Check out these two photos from the Mount Ruapehu website.

They are chairlifts buried in nearly four meters of snow. It is just nuts! I am hoping to go skiing again on the trip back up to Auckland.

Okay. So I did manage to get up at 4am and get on the road by 4.20am.

Admittedly it was a struggle to stay awake until some light appeared at 6am, and the torrential rain heading south was not much fun. But it lifted around 2 hours into the trip.

I got to National Park village at 8.45am. This was a little later then I hoped for but I had to travel slow through the rain and play it safe. The really freaky thing was the snow on the road at National Park. The following photo is taken heading to Ruapheu just a little after National Park. Note: This photo is of a state highway. NOT the mountain road.

Once I got to Wakapapa Village I had chains fitted to my car.

As you can see from the following photo they were certainly needed:

On the chains I had to travel up the mountain at 30kmh max. This meant that the trip to the Top of the Bruce took close to an hour. I managed to get my tickets and gear at 9.40am, and got onto the snow at 10am, a whole hour after I had planned.

Because the weather was bad the upper mountain facilities were closed. Therefore I decided to get an intermediate lesson. I was fortunate enough to be the only one interested in this lesson so ended up with an hour of private tuition!

The lesson lasted until 11am, when they closed all but the Happy Valley beginners area of the mountain.

The amount of snow on the area (Rockgarden) where the lesson was had was amazing. The snow was so thick that it was a stuggle to see where the slopes and paths were and where the rest of the mountain was. However, this didn’t matter too much as there is a 3m snow base! The depth of snow was so impressive that on some slopes you sunk about ankle deep in fresh snow despite being on skis.

The weather was terrible on the day. But that didn’t matter too much. I have been in worse tramping. It was around -2, 50kmh wind or so (so very very cold wind chill at least -10), and visibility at 50 - 100m.

My car at the end of the day. Frozen.

My car was very nice and warm. Not.

Brad after a day on the mountain. My new goggles and overpants rocked.

Yes there is a building under all that snow.

Coming down the mountain there it was almost torrential snow. Quite fun. But a little scary at the same time. Especially as my chains had been taken off when this shot was taken. Look at the snow on top of the jeep in front.

After the day I stayed at Miro Lodge in Ohakune. Which was alright. I was a little disappointed not to wake to snow in Ohakune in the morning. And next time I would love to take someone else. You get bored by yourself after a while.

Okay the weather is packing in for the weekend so if I want to go skiing I must do it tomorrow.

That means a 4am start to my day.

It is currently 9.15pm and I still have to complete packing, take a shower, load the car, and go to bed. So long Auckland, the Internet, and work for at least the next week and a half. I don’t even have a date that I will be back. It is so great!