Opening Day!!!!!

We weren't that excited about opening day at Coronet Peak really. Well, not until we woke up this morning anyway! It's been great to get back on our skis and boards again (without having the hard work of walking up first!).

The day dawned a little overcast, and forecast to get worse, so we headed up bright and early (which also had the added benefit of a free glass of bubbles on the first chairs). We're pleased we did - they opened the chairs ahead of time (which NEVER happens) to try and help with the lift queues - which it did. We never thought we'd say it but NZSki finally seems to have figured out how to make Opening Day a success. They had blown fresh man-made snow on all the trails overnight, but turned off the snowmakers on the main trails so that you didn't get covered in snow on every run. The snow quality was great, the queues were non existent until mid morning and the staff were friendly and well trained (which is not the norm). So we were well impressed.

Greg under Greengates chair:

Andrea on her board, also under Greengates chair. Note the powder snow - which is also unusual for this time of year at Coronet Peak... which is dubbed "Concrete Peak" by the locals.

Greg and Andrea up the top of the chair

Queen's Birthday Weekend

We've never looked forward to a long weekend quite so much! The past few weeks have been quite busy, with Andrea involved in the orchestra for the local production of Les Miserables and Greg's work having dramas all of it's own.

Queen's Birthday weekend rolled around and we largely spent the 3 days catching up on sleep and sitting as close to the log burner as we could get. Although we didn't get as much snow as was forecast (just a few snow showers on Sunday morning), the temperatures have been bitterly cold. Things finally cleared out and warmed up a little for Monday (this morning) - a balmy 3 degrees when we left home at 11am. We decided that since we hadn't actually done it yet, we'd take the walk around Lake Hayes, which is known for it's reflections (especially in Autumn). It's been so cold that parts of the lake have frozen. And were still frozen at midday when we walked through!

We took a few photos of the scenery - this one being the one that worked out the best due to passing cloud etc.

We headed home after the walk and had a bite to eat and then promptly headed out again. Greg has been hoping since we arrived here to be able to say he walked across the road from our house (to the beach) and caught a fish. Well today it finally happened..... twice!

The photos of the fish itself didn't come out very well due to it's wriggly nature and the fact that we try to get most fish back into the lake as quickly as possible when we're releasing them. We'd estimate both Rainbow trout at 4 lb. A good eating size, if you're that way inclined.

The first photo shows the first run just after hookup... which took out half the line on Greg's reel in about 20 seconds flat.

The second shot shows the splash just after the fish jumped out in an attempt to shake the hook free (a manouevre that often succeeds if there is any slack in the line).

Speaking of Met Service....

More snow pictures

We know you're probably all already bored of snow photos.... and it's not even winter yet... but still.... these are the facts. It's the coldest May in Queenstown in 15 years. Coronet Peak already has over a metre of snow at the top of the ski area and about 20 cm at the base, which for this time of year is unheard of. We're just hoping it sticks around. The locals have a saying: "Snow in May never stays, snow in June is still too soon" so we're not holding our breath.... however we're still getting excited.

This first photo was taken from Andrea's work a few days ago, when we'd had snow to lake level. It settled to just above lake level - and made the trees look very pretty!

Today, Greg, Max and a few friends decided that with all the snow we've already talked about that they would head up Coronet Peak to hike up and ski and board back down. Greg and Max were both in snowshoes, and boarded back down, whilst the others had touring (similar to telemark) skis on. Even with snowshoes on, Greg and Max were still nearly up to their waists by the time they got to the top. Boarding back down they definitely had to keep their speed up, or they would have sunk under the snow. They even set off a small avalanche (note: we're planning on doing an avalanche safety course this year).

Here are the photos from today's mission.

Greg near the top of Coronet (note depth of deep powder - and this is with snow shoes on!)

Max near the top of Coronet (also wearing snowshoes)

Greg laying into a turn... and trying to not submerge his board in the powder!

Ben Lomond.... take 2

We woke up with snow forecast to near lake level and bitterly cold southerlies - and white hills. So, Greg and Max, in their infinite wisdom, decided it was the perfect day for another hike up Ben Lomond.

They started off at the bottom of the Gondola and made it to halfway between the saddle and the summit when the cloud came in and reduced visibility to the point where it wasn't a smart idea to go much further.

The boys were a little disappointed to discover that what looked like a good foot or two of snow from here was actually only about 4-6 inches up the top.

Some photos:

Greg walking up the track (snowing lightly, but with the sun trying it's hardest to break through!)

Greg looking out at the view, from just above the saddle (a glimpse of the Remarkables in the right hand corner)

You may remember the park bench below from a previous blog: http://gregandandreajarvis.blogspot.com/2009/01/hard-yakka.html - back when we first started hiking. (Max standing beside the bench)

Mt Crichton Scenic Reserve

Well, not just Mt Crichton, but mostly!

On Saturday morning we went into town for the Anzac Day Parade and then headed towards the Gondola. We walked up the track that leads from the gondola base building to a bit above the restaurant at the top, with Max, Fin and Morgan. Fin took a nice photo of the two of us in the "frame" they have erected up the top (much the same as the ones around Auckland).

On Sunday we woke up to discover it had mostly stopped raining, so headed out again, this time to Mt Crichton Scenic Reserve. This is an area of Beech Forest just off the Glenorchy Road, near to Lake Dispute where we walked a couple of weeks ago (about 10 minutes out of town).

The track is a loop track, marked as "2-4 hours" but we must be getting fitter or something as we churned it out in 1 hour and 40 minutes... yay for Weight Watchers! We even stopped to take a few photos:

These first 2 photos are of an old miner's hut now used by hunters and other trampers (the reserve is on the border of a restricted hunting area). We were amazed at how well looked after the hut was, and how much respect is shown by all who visit it. There are numerous old mining tools hanging up outside the hut - they'd be worth a bit of money, but everyone leaves them for everyone else to enjoy. It's great!

People do still stay in the hut - although we think we'd bring our own bedrolls.... the matresses are almost old enough to be the originals from 100 years ago.

Just past the hut we came across this waterfall... AaaaHhhhhh!!

And these toadstools - which were the size of bread and butter plates. Everything else in a beech forest is brown or green so they stood out miles away.

Going Bush... again

Friday morning dawned clear, calm, crisp..... and COLD. It was -4 degrees according to the car's external thermometer just before we set off on another tramp. Crisp mornings like that lead to great photos though, and once we'd been walking for about 20 minutes we weren't particularly cold anymore.


The first part of the tramp was nice and easy, with a marked trail that worked its way around Lake Sylvan (pictured below), after starting lower down the same valley as the well known Routeburn track.


The first half an hour was the tramping equivalent of a 4-lane highway... wide, flat, with bridges across the little streams and a gravel track. Once leaving Lake Sylvan it turned into a proper tramping track - with markers every hundred metres or so and no bridges to speak of, until we reached the Rockburn river. We spent a bit of time and energy keeping our feet dry on this section of track (avoiding bogs and finding good stream crossing points) which soon proved to be a bit of a waste of time.


After the Rockburn, the trail was not marked at all. We made our way down to the Dart River Flats and walked upstream to the Beans Burn river, using map, compass, GPS and a bit of common sense.


We walked across Beans Burn (up to our waists in snow melt - i.e. not overly tropical) and (eventually) found the marked trail up to the flats halfway up the valley.


We reached our camp site shortly before the sun went behind the surrounding hills. Of all of the thousands of acres of national park that we were in, we were a little bit disappointed to have a couple of hunters pitch their tent 50m from ours... but there's not a lot we can do about that!



The plan for Saturday was to explore further up Beans Burn, camp in the same location, and then walk out on Sunday. However, we woke up on Saturday morning to discover wet, warm weather, which meant large amounts of snow melt and rising rivers. So we packed up quickly and headed back down the valley to get across the Beans Burn river prior to the waters rising too much. Everyone else in the valley had the same idea - we met others heading hastily down the valley (including some who needed to cross the Dart - which is a FAR bigger river to cross).

We thoroughly enjoyed it, even with cutting the tramp short by a day. We got to know more of the locals... i.e. deer, birds, and the local flying elephants (sand flies). We got our own back on the sand flies though, we're both pretty sure we ate as many of them with our dinner as they ate of us. Extra protein.