Again, a small town by UK standards but nice. Full of ‘extreme’ sports and activities, something for everyone. Our first port of call was the Snowboarding rental shop, which one to chose? Their like pubs in an English town Centre, one every other door; so many of them. We found one offering a Spring rental deal, hired our gear and went to get the Lift pass; and another Spring deal to be had here so we were $’s in or so we thought. We remembered our friend Bill, and his advice to get a pair of Impact shorts (thanks Bill, good call) we have bruises everywhere except where we’re covered by them; wonder if they do an Impact body suit?
Our first day at Snowboarding, the first hurdle was the bus ride up to The Remarkables; LOOK at the pictures what a drop. No barriers and dusty gravel road, Em sat on the aisle seat and refused to look out the window; at typing this she hasn’t even looked at the pictures because were going back up and she’d rather not know about it.
We’ve been up there in the glaring sun for 5 days on the run now, I think the word ‘aching’ was invented for Snowboarding. I can honestly say that on day 5 my legs were no use at all, the slightest bump in the snow and they just buckled underneath me. Em was feeling the same, due in part to the massive amount of bruising that she has to her Left leg; strange only on her one leg until we figured out it was from the Chairlift hitting her and not the Boarding after all. After a glass of wine and a chat we decided to take a couple of days off to recover and rent the gear a little later for a couple of days and hope the season continued. Very strange thing, wearing factor 30 sun lotion in the mountains; but we needed it. Even wearing the factor 30 I’ve still got a face like Father Christmas, NOT fat; just Red and rosy cheeked. We thought the time off from boarding would give us a day to look around, book a Bungy or something, but then we heard about a Mazda Bongo going for sale in Dunedin (other side of island) so off we went for a day out; picked her up and drove back across the island. She seems fine, no rattles or leaks; clean inside and out and everything works. So we’ll see how she goes over the next few months.
Oh, and Em’ has found another Chocolate shop here (3 actually) We were walking along the Lake front and then it happened, her eyes went large; her nostrils went into overdrive her head started to swivel around like she watching a Tennis match and those now familiar words rang out over the still Lake waters ‘I CAN SMELL CHOCOLATE’ She was right, about 50 mtr’s around a blind bend was a home made Chocolate shop; amazes me every time!
After our 2 day break from boarding we were all excited to hear that there had been Snow fall over night, so back to boarding again or so we thought! The only way I can describe the conditions is to say, when we sat on the chairlift you could only see 1 chair in front; and you could NOT see the snow below. Talk about FOG, I think it was actually clouds rather than fog it was that poor visibility; we did our best but we were very cautious not knowing what was around the next bend. It cleared a little on the second day and the afternoon was quite pleasant, but very busy due to the school holidays over here. We watched a Kea (Alpine Parrot) have a fun time drinking some Coke, when someone gathered up ‘his lunch’ the little sod raided a bin and got some more; they are reputably the smartest Parrot and after seeing this one at work we can believe it. It gripped the cup with its feet and then picked it up in his beak and had a drink; put it down and then did the same for another drink. After a great deal of time buggering around, we did manage to get a short video of a run down the slopes using Andy’s headcam gadget, so we’ll try and get that onto the web for you to have a look at; but not promising anything.
After our time here in Queenstown, we’ve decided to head out of town for a few days to see the Snows at Wanaka and then come back to do the Jet boat, Kiwi spotting etc’ and little later. We’ve been told that the Mountains around Lake Wanaka are something to be seen with the snow caps.
