Mt Hutt

This weekend I flew down to Christchurch for a ski weekend

I was sooooo excited!!!

I left work early so that I wouldn’t get stuck in traffic and since my flight was delayed, waited 3 hours in the domestic terminal

After locating my luggage and taking ages to find out how to get the boot open on the rental then driving to the hotel, I didn’t fall asleep until around 11:30pm

( I still didn't figure that boot out, I had to load my stuff over the back... )

We got up at 6:15am on Saturday

Jeremy’s workmate was up at 5am, amped and ready to go, bounding down the corridor in excitement

Once we were loaded up we were off and got to the mountain just as it opened

There was snow the night before so we had fresh powder and it was
amazing!

     
The view was amazing, it was the first time I’ve been up the Southern Alps and the weather behaved itself, as it does in the south

I was pretty sore by the end of the day and while none of us wanted to leave, our muscles were pleased we did

The next morning we left later, but arrived earlier (???!!!???)

The Kea’s were busy pulling apart the snow truck so stayed away from our rental ( I don’t even know if we were even insured against them… can you be insured against Kea’s?? )

  

I paced myself so that I could last until 4pm since we were all pretty sore from the day before

When us girls stopped for lunch, we noticed some random Japanese guy taking our photo on his phone… weird

Then he came over and asked us to take a photo of him, turned out he wanted one with me… even weirder… People stare at me, but that’s another blog altogether!

At the end of the day we took to the beginner slopes for fun to wind down and it was great to practice my turns

I’m sure there’s stuff I’ve missed, like the boys saying it was ‘warm’ when it was 6 degrees outside on Saturday morning, then on Sunday when it was 0 degrees and we stopped briefly on the way and they said ‘it didn’t feel very cold’

South Island Adventures

I can now officially say that I've been to the South Island

I saw the seals at Kaikoura

They didn't smell

The one on the wall in the background had a nasty temper and showed me his teeth 

The one on the grass could have let me touch him, I didn't want to risk it.... 

The public toilets were so clean at Kaikoura you could have had a picnic in the cubicle

Northland/Auckland - you need to step up your game!

We went to Hamner Springs Thermal Resort

It was so clean and new, it made Waiwera look like a dump - and it was way cheaper

On Sunday we drove around Christchurch looking at the damage, I felt bad waking around taking photos. Then I counted the tourists doing the same thing

This road was packed with cars that had pulled over to take pics of the houses perched on the edge of the cliff

This road used to be flat

This bridge used to be straight

There are lots of these signs in the Red Zone

This is how they hold up the walls in Lyttleton

...and so for all who are curious, no I didn't feel any aftershocks

There's always next time when I go down again to tackle Mt Hutt, which opened today!!

Waa-hoo!!

Christchurch Here I Come!

This weekend I'm going to Christchurch...

That is provided the flight isn't cancelled due to the ash cloud from Chile

Then I need to get home again

I'm excited to be going down, not at all looking forward to an aftershock in the middle of the night...

I can see it now, sleeping, in the hotel, the shake starts rumbling, I start screaming and running for the door

At least I don't sleep naked

To be honest I'm just looking forward to using the new carry-on suitcase I got for my birthday

I would upload a photo but it wount flip around the right way...

Its purple and thats all it takes to be cool

I would take it everywhere, but people would feel uncomfortable in my awesomeness

This is the kind of thing that is frequently seen in Christchurch

My heart goes out to them

I wanna see the glacier

I want to see the seals

People say they stink really bad and you can only go near the beach if you hold your nose firmly shut

If you've ever been in the car with my dad and he's locked the windows you'll know thats its gonna be a piece of cake compared to that

Jeremy will be taking me to the thermal area, I can't remember what its called but I've been instructed to take my swimwear.

I hope its not near the seals

I shall let you know how it goes next week