Snow Glorious Snow part 2..

A short video showing the big fat flakes falling!

Snow Glorious Snow

As you can probably tell from the last photo, it snowed and settled to lake level on Wednesday morning this week. We woke up at about 6:30am to see the rain turn to snow and within half an hour it was building up on the roads. By 8am they had closed the schools for the day and were telling everyone to keep off the roads unless necessary. The rain had frozen under the snow creating a layer of sheet ice underneath the snow, making driving conditions dangerous. So we did as we were told and stayed home.

Terrible!

Here are a few photos of the snow.

Our Christmas Card house:

Not such a great day to hang the washing out!

Greg on the "Beach" across the road from home


Andrea on the path through to the beach

Unfortunately, at about 10am, the sun came out and just as quickly as it had built up, the snow on the roads turned to slush and it was safe to drive again so we had to go to work.

There's still snow on our backyard tonight (Friday night) and over much of Queenstown - just not on the roads thank goodness.

Beach Weather

It was such a nice morning, Greg decided to take his breakfast onto the front porch and watch the sun come up....

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