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The palm trees and crystal clear beaches of the Cook Islands were pretty gorgeous, but what a girl really needs in July is...SNOW!
Yes, the lure of being wet, cold, and bruised as V falls over on her bottom for the 60th time snowboarding has proven too hard to resist, so we have headed to New Zealand to enjoy the Southern Hemisphere's "winter". It does seem a bit strange to be wrapped up in 2 jumpers as we head into August, but there you go...
We landed to an early morning drizzly and freezing Christchurch and headed over to V's distantish cousin Helen and her hubby Bruce who are building a beautiful place on the outskirts of the city. After teasing V about wearing "jandles" (flipflops) in such conditions they let us in and gave us a hugely warm welcome, which included a fantastic roast and the local All Blacks match on widescreen. Their lovely daughter Lisa (and half Hamish) kindly let us stay a few more days in their town centre home, including lending us their green machine car whilst we familiarised ourselves with all of Christchurch's second hand garages before purchasing "Cecil", our elderly Subaru Wagon, with 4WD and many many rattles to help us on our way.
A few days up at Mount Hutt snowfield followed, with not much snow but fantastic views of the Canterbury plains, stretched out in front of the mountain like patchwork. We stayed in Methven, a tiny village at the bottom of the hill, and tried to star in Hamish's TV report he was doing at the ski hill. Don't think we are going to make a living as pro boarders in a hurry!
An excellent weekend in Christchurch with Lis and the younger crew of Nick, George and Poppy followed, as we took in the ChCh nightlife at the pub with Lis and her friends, and worked off our hangovers by playing rugby in the park.
We then headed down south to Wanaka, via the electric blue lake of Tekapo and the "high country" where sheep rule and trees are few. After exploring this great little village, and getting our climbing muscles back into touch at the awesome basecamp www.basecampwanaka.co.nzwe headed towards Queenstown.
After a quick look around Queenstown and not being in luck with finding any sensibly priced accommodation that wasn't backpacker dormitories, we found Arrowtown, a cute little village just 20 mins away but much quieter. The truly excellent Poplar Lodge www.poplarlodge.co.nz/ has been our home for the last few days as we have begun to explore the skifields in the area. A couple of days at Coronet Peak has been fun, as the boards we have bought as a bit more trick friendly than our boards from last winter. V is perfecting her "butters" (like a wheelie) and 180s, and Rob is looking stronger on his frontside 360s and thinking about venturing to some bigger stuff in the pack... although if it snows I am sure we will be ripping up the piste!
We are looking v much forward to Nic, a friend from Fernie, coming over for a fortnight from Aus. Hope she brings some snow with her!
V&R
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