Snowy fun

Spectacular, eh?

On Monday the weather was a bit hit and miss. We woke up in Methven to fog but headed out to Mt Hutt regardless. Halfway up the mountain road the cloud lifted a little and by the time we reached the top we were out of the fog but still below high cloud cover. The snow was lovely though. Great skiing was to be had, and we did indeed have it. All day. Until the light got a bit flat mid-afternoon-ish, at which point we headed back to Methven to recover from the day's exertions.

We spoke up this morning to find Methven again shrouded in fog. The snow report lifted our spirits though as it was scattered with phrases like "fantastic skiing" and "above the cloud". Once again we headed up the misty moutain road and today when we popped our heads about the clouds conditions were definitely not overcast. Beautiful blue skies highlighted fresh powdery snow. Oh boy, what a day.

It was a strange sight to look out over Canterbury and have it completely hidden by cloud, having a grey and miserable day when we were basking in sunlight. It was also rather a bizarre sensation to be skiing on a mountain we can see from our living room window.

We definitely timed the ski-trip right, I think. Tomorrow they expect 50cm of snow and winds topping 100kph. Such a contrast to today's utterly fantastic conditions. As you can probably tell, I'm still on a bit of a high. I think Joanne and Jason enjoyed themselves too. They were both certainly shattered by the end of the day, enjoying a kip in the car on the drive back home. A sure sign of a good day's snow fun.

I'm not sure I'll get used to see kea in the snow though. I didn't realise alpine parrots even existed.