Nice work, Met Service

We couldn't decide how to name this blog. We came up with a number of possibilities: Cold as a Mother-in-Law's Kiss, The Mad Jarvises but decided on the one above.

The weekend's weather was forecast as follows:

Saturday: fine, with light winds and early morning frosts. High of 17, overnight low of 6.

Sunday: Warm Nor'westers rising to gale late afternoon with rain by evening. High of 17. Free air freezing level 2300m.

Hence we decided that although there was the chance of getting a bit wet on the way out, we'd head into the bush anyway as we were keen to sight in the new rifle Greg has just bought.

The sighting in of the rifle went really well. This involves shooting at a target with inch scales on it, and adjusting the scope up, down, left and right until the point you aim at is the point you hit! It involves a bit of accuracy on the part of the shooter. It only took us a dozen shots to get the rifle shooting accurately at 100m. At that point, Greg decided Andrea needed to take a shot with the rifle so that she knew what it was all about. She took aim, fired.... and hit the bullseye from 100m. Much to Greg's disgust. Andrea maintains she won't shoot it again now - why ruin the perfect record?? Hehehe

Saturday morning indeed dawned fine and frosty with light winds. By evening the winds had gotten up a bit so it looked like the forecast was right on track.

We reached our camp site at about 2.30pm and set up the tent. We had a bit of a look around, then had an early dinner and headed up the flats to see if we could spot any deer. We didn't. We put this down to a number of reasons. Firstly, it's a bit early. There's still a lot of snow around, and the grass down low hasn't really begun to green up for summer yet (which is what the deer come out of the forest for). Secondly, DoC have been flying choppers into the area, dropping 1080 for Possums and Stoats in the area, which may have spooked the deer into staying in the bush. We weren't aware that the 1080 drop had been in this area, but we're pleased we had carried in all the water we needed. Not a risk you want to take.

We got back to camp shortly after 6.30 pm and headed into the tent. The temperature was starting to drop and we were also getting pretty sick and tired of being eaten alive, so we got into the tent and spent the next 15 minutes killing all the mozzies in the tent!

The temperature continued to drop. And drop. And drop. And so did the wind. We are very grateful we invested in top quality sleeping bags and a good tent. And that we had the common sense to put our thermals on before climbing into our sleeping bags!

So, to anyone out there who has ever said either of the following: "There's NOTHING worse than putting your feet into wet boots!" or "There's NOTHING worse than taking down a wet tent", we plead otherwise. Replace "wet" in both of the above sentences with "frozen solid like cardboard". Greg's water bottle even froze slightly in the tent. And there's photographic proof:

If anyone was wondering about the unusual shape of the tent, it's designed to withstand very strong winds and heavy snow and rain.

As you can see below, a very picturesque place for a camp site... it just wasn't the temperatures predicted. Free air freezing level 2300m - not exactly! We would have guessed the temperature outside the tent first thing this morning at about -4 or -5. The dew was freezing on the outside of our thermals! Looking on the bright side, the frost got rid of the mozzies and we were able to eat our breakfast without competition. Or extra protein.

The temperature came up considerably once the sun hit us and we walked out in brilliant sunshine (which we were grateful for as the water in the rivers was extremely cold). We went back a slightly different way to the way we went in, and we're very excited by the deer sign we saw on the way back. Watch this space!