Red sky in the morning.....

So, we left off with a shot of the Remarkables at sunset. This time it's sunrise (Friday morning on the way to work). It's one of the few advantages of the short days at this time of year - we get to see sunrise on the way to work and sunset on the way home!

This first photo is looking towards the Crown Range from by the airport

This one, obviously, is the Remarkables (taken from Frankton Road, which is the main road as you drive into town along the lakeside)

And after Burton almost sitting on the heater in our last post, we're pleased to say the fire is most definitely up and running again... and as you'll see below, Burton is pretty pleased about it all. Happy? Definitely. Modest? Not so much.

Snow and Helicopters

No, not together unfortunately (eg Heliskiing)!

Winter has finally made an appearance. Better late than never! Last week's snow continued into Saturday with snow to lake level almost all day (slightly unforecast... as per usual). We reached a high of 3°C on Saturday, which we would normally be delighted about - but as our chimney blocked up on Friday morning and we couldn't get it cleaned until Monday morning, we were a little on the chilly side. Lets just say that 5 heaters couldn't match the fire's warmth.

Burton was less than impressed and spent the weekend getting acquainted with an oil heater.

On Sunday we went for a walk towards Jacks Point and took these photos:

Ben Lomond, up above the Gondola and Bob's Peak:

The view towards Wye Creek and Kingston:

The Remarkables from Jardine Park:

This morning dawned fine and clear. And frosty - minus 1.5 in Frankton at 9am. We're not sure if we're looking forward to the minus 4 forecast overnight tonight. At least we'll get up to a massive high of 3 again though. It makes steel capped boots less than fun.

Greg's job is going well. The site has the lake on one side, the main road (complete with overhead power cables) on another and existing houses on the last two sides. So a crane to lift in the large steel beams simply wasn't going to work. Enter the helicopter - as seen below (photos taken on Greg's phone). Quite a sight with the flat lake and snow capped hills behind it. Apparently quite a crowd was gathered up on the road watching the goings on.

And last but not least, one of our favourite Queenstown views; The Remarkables at sunset, covered in snow. Snapped from Greg's phone as he walked home. It's a hard life.

Hawea and Haast

We've been pretty busy over the past few weeks, with Andrea playing in the Orchestra for the local production of "Oliver!", Greg taking a trip to Auckland and various other bits and pieces. It's looking a lot like winter has finally arrived - we'll wait and see if the snow sticks around before we get excited and take photos of it though!


Here are a few shots of our most recent trips, one to the northern side of Lake Hawea and another through to Haast.

It was really cold the day we headed up on the northern side of Hawea (and quite steep as you'll see from the photos!). There was still ice on the track on the way back down at 3 pm.

Looking towards Lake Hawea township (Greg at bottom of the picture):

Looking towards the Eastern hills by Hawea:

Some toadstools (I liked the way the light was catching them!):

And from our trip through to the West Coast. We didn't take too many photos as photos won't do justice to most of the Haast pass. It's a trip we'd recommend to anyone.

Haast Beach looking north. It was good to smell the sea again!

The Gates of Haast Bridge:

The worst is over...

Saturday morning we drove into town to have breakfast and take more pictures of the flooding. The lake was at its peak, and just starting to flood town.

The Novotel


Marine Parade


Saw this in a shop window and had a bit of a giggle

The waterfront

Water water everywhere

So, here's a photo of what the lake level normally looks like at this time of year (although normally there's a bit less snow!)

And so this morning we thought we'd take another photo for comparison... unfortunately the Queenstown Photography club also thought that was a great idea so we didn't exactly get the clean shot we were after (the lake's risen another 200 mm since then and is still rising).

Since this time last week, the lake has risen by 1.3 metres. The lake is pretty big, so the amount of water needed to lift the level that much is over 350 BILLION litres. Which is pretty cool.

Sorry but I've had to delete the last photo as it's now been sold to the local papers. Will try and get some more shots tomorrow.

Winter's here... but where's the snow?

We got up this morning to discover that the promised storm was indeed on it's way in. There were waterspouts forming in the lake and it was getting progressively darker down towards Glenorchy. Less than an hour later, we looked out to see that half the lake had been swallowed up by the grey murkiness. In a week's time last year, Greg was hiking up Ben Lomond with our friend Max in a snow storm and in 2 weeks time we were snowboarding on Coronet Peak. The hills are VERY bare at the moment so it better hurry up and get cold soon. It's currently 14 degrees outside (at 7pm) which is way too warm for this time of year. It's also raining heavily and we've even had thunder and lightning.

And in contrast to the revolting weather today, here's a photo taken in Wanaka last week when we were on our way to hear Andrea's friend's band play. This shot is looking north-west from the main Wanaka waterfront (towards Rob Roy Glacier and in the general direction of Treble Cone).

Postcard Photos

We took the boat out yesterday for a spot of fishing and for a picnic lunch over on a little beach near Walter Peak Station (near where the Earnslaw cruise goes to). It was a perfect day for boating - warm sun, blue skies with just a few fluffy white clouds and hardly a breath of wind. Once the morning frost cleared we reached a high of about 17 degrees so very pleasant.

And here are our postcard photos:

The Earnslaw chugging towards Walter Peak Station

Cecil Peak at dusk - these cloud formations made for a pretty sunset but we were busy unloading the boat so didn't get any photos.

More of the cloud formations with Walter Peak to the left of the shot

The clouds over Ben Lomond

The Earnslaw heading back out again (just below Sunshine Bay)

And last but not least, the golf course and the Remarkables. There will hopefully be snow on them again by the end of the week!