Lupins, Lupins and more Lupins...

As promised, some photos of the Lupins. They come in a very wide range of flowers and grow pretty much everywhere.

Some pink and purple lupins....


And some yellow lupins....

And lots of different coloured lupins!

These were all taken on Peninsula Road, about 3 minutes drive from home. Apparently the lupins down at the Arrow River are even prettier, but we haven't quite managed to get that far yet.

We had a very quiet weekend, didn't get up to much. After Friday night's wakeboarding we took it easy on Saturday, cutting, carrying, splitting and stacking 3 cubic metres of firewood. We are now completely finished with the firewood for winter next year. Sunday we got up early again and headed out wakeboarding with Ross and Deborah from across the road. It was the flattest we have ever seen Lake Wakatipu - awesome as it was Deborah's first time (and she got up on her 3rd attempt!). After we got home and unpacked the boat we headed back out to do some spinning (fishing from shore with little plastic lures). Supposedly we were heading out for "an hour or two". We returned home 4.5 hours later, with a rainbow trout we cooked up for dinner. It is now 7pm and we are both ready for bed! It's a hard life...

Wakeboarding!!

The last two evenings (Thursday/Friday) have been relatively calm so we headed out both nights wakeboarding after work. Greg's workmates Jim and Matt came along, as did our friend Max. Also a couple of random friends of friends - it's great to be meeting new people all the time!

A great time was had by all, especially on Thursday night when we managed to get into some flat water just before sunset. We got a few good photos, so thought we would put some up here for you.

The first photo is Greg with the sun behind him laying into a big carving turn.

The next photo is Andrea, not carving quite as much.... she does also jump a little but the "air" is so short lived that it's almost impossible to get a photo of :-)
Greg in Mid airAnd the last photo is Greg's workmate (and our friend) Matt - just had to include this photo! He's about a metre in the air, in the middle of a 180.

Always the spaniards...

A bit of background to this post.... on the alpine slopes around here there are two main types of vegetation. The most common is the tussock plant. These grow like weeds and also form a large part of most people's gardens (because you don't have to feed or water them and they look great). The other plant is called a spaniard. Tussocks are soft, like tall grass, but with stronger blades. They are ideal for support when clambering around on the slopes. Spaniards are hard and spiky and hurt lots if you happen to grab onto one.

I (Andrea) had a site visit up at Treble Cone Ski Field on Monday. It was an absolutely gorgeous day, and the purpose of my visit was a good walk around on some of the lower slopes, taking GPS readings. I can now state with no doubt what-so-ever that EVERY time you lose your balance, you can be assured of landing on or in a spaniard. Or accidentally grabbing one to stop you falling.

The views, however, were spectacular. This first photo is looking out directly from the ski field over Lake Wanaka.

The second photo is of the Matukituki Valley. Rachael and Dave might recognise this as we drove up the valley to the start of the walk we did in February up to Rob Roy Glacier.

In other news, things have been really hectic. We have been out most nights collecting firewood for next winter (most of the firewood easily available is still pretty green - i.e. has just been chopped down - so we need to let it dry before we can burn it). Last night we headed out wakeboarding with 2 of Greg's workmates and an Intern currently working with Andrea. Was lots of fun, but the muscles are complaining a little today.

The weather continues to be schizophrenic. Today we got to 32 degrees. We are sleeping with windows open at night - compared to last week when we had 3 days of snow to lake level, with early morning frosts and VERY cold overnight temperatures. Last week Greg was suffering from wind burn and this week we have both gotten sunburnt - we just can't win.

Work for both of us is entering the silly season and we will be putting in long hours in the lead up to Christmas - so these updates may not be as frequent, but we will try our hardest!

A bit of a change

A bit of a change from yesterday! Photos taken from the same spot - although fine, it was a chilly minus 3.

Last gasp of winter.... take 3

We somehow keep getting it wrong when we think Winter is done with us. Today we have had steady snow all day, and still snowing as we write (10pm). Not a lot had settled on the ground at lake level in town, but out where Greg is working at Jacks Point it's another story altogether. This all settled in about 20 minutes before they decided to call it a snow day and head home.

This second photo shows the 'view' out towards the lake.... when it clears up in a couple of days Greg will take some more photos to show what you'd normally see!