Twas the month before Christmas...

And all through the house, not a creature was stirring..... well, except for Burton the hairy pink nosed reindeer-cat!

Fishing update

Greg's very pleased as he's just had an email requesting a high resolution copy of the photo of his ugly old brown trout to feature as the "cover fish" for the Wakatipu Angler's club magazine. Apparently no one has been doing very well with the fishing lately, the fish have been "off the bite". Unfortunately they forgot to tell Greg.

More on 4WDing

Neil and Glenys have made a video of the trip from Saturday. It's a pretty big file as it's High Definition video, so probably not recommended if you only have dial up.... or if your data allowance is running low!

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ux2JC3xjV4I

4WDing and Fishing

We weren't sure what to do this weekend, whether to go hunting or fishing or tramping... or nothing-ing. Then we received a phone call late Friday evening from Greg's friend Rex, who lives about 100m up the road (Greg often goes rabbit shooting with Rex). Rex is 73 and is a mostly retired market gardener who grew up in Invercargill and now lives his life the way Greg would like to.... fishing and hunting and nothing-ing.

Rex was phoning to invite us out 4WDing with the Shotover 4WD club, of which Rex is a member. They go out on "club runs" every few weeks where they head into a different 4WD area near to here, and this week they were heading into the upper Mataura. We weren't sure if we'd know anyone, but we turned up at the meeting point and knew over half the people there, including Neil and Glenys from across the road.

We had a brilliant day, and were passengers in a number of different trucks throughout the day - everyone wanted us to jump in with them so that they could show off their trucks. We're trying hard to not get hooked as it seems to be an expensive hobby... but too late. We're already devising plans to either do up the Bighorn (snorkel, suspension, tow hooks, winch and mud tyres) or sell it and buy something more suitable.

It was more tiring than we thought it would be - we left home at 9:30am and bumped and jiggled our way through the next 10 hours, not getting home again until nearly 8pm, but it was soooo much fun.

The trucks lined up at the top of one of the two ridges we went up:

Stopping for a rest:

The view from the top of the ridge. In the foreground you can see the track we came up, and yes, we started off right down the bottom of the valley!

Cleaning the truck after one of the mud holes... it's much more fun to use fords than hoses.

This morning we awoke to find the lake mirror-flat and decided to not waste it, so we headed out fishing for a few hours. We did pretty well, coming up with 8 fish in under 2 hours. And no, we won't be telling anyone where we went!

Here's a photo of Greg's knarly old brown trout, which we figured to be about 6 pound. Check out the hump on it's head! Just like old snapper, they get bigger and uglier as they get older.

Just a lazy Friday night...

Vege Garden!

For Andrea's birthday in September, she received some Mitre 10 vouchers from both sets of parents and some of the value was put towards our new Vege Patch. The remainder was spent on a baking blow torch which Andrea uses to caramelise sugar on Creme Brulee - mainly for Greg's benefit!

The vege patch has exceeded expectations - since planting in September we've already started harvesting the baby spinach and the spring onions for salads (at least every second night for the past 3 weeks so far) and the silverbeet and peas are well on their way. The parsley and chives are thriving alongside the Rosemary Tree that already existed (it's a lot bigger than a bush, even after Greg hacked off 2/3 of it's branches!), and the beans were planted a couple of weeks ago (they need warmer soil so can't be planted until late October when the frosts have finished) so we're hoping they'll be ready to eat in late January.

This is the first year that we've ever had a vege patch, so it's a bit trial and error, but we're pleased with the results so far!

The vege patch looking from the clothes line:

And a week later... peas!!

Boulder-dash!

Sorry it's been a wee while since we blogged. You all know what the lead up to Christmas is like for everyone!

In the past few weeks we've been up to a lot:

2 weeks ago Andrea went up to Auckland for the weekend whilst Dave (her brother in law) came down here to go hunting with Greg. Andrea had a great weekend with her family, including taking 2 year old Jeremy to the zoo and a family dinner, and Greg and Dave had a great weekend too. They went down to Haast for a couple of days and although they got close to deer, didn't manage to shoot any. However they spent a day culling goats a bit closer to home and had a ball.

We've also had the most recent street "do" here and had a fantastic evening with the neighbours - we had a cocktail night with fancy canapes and everyone is still talking about it... and when we'll do it again. We had a good turn out with about 30 guests - not bad for a street with only 12 houses in it!

Greg and Chris in the kitchen preparing Martinis (Shaken, not stirred):

Andrea and some of the other "girls" (enjoying our night out of the kitchen!):

This weekend we went away for a bit of a hunt/tramp between Makarora and Haast. The idea was to follow a stream up a bit, but it turned out to be a bit more challenging than we'd thought with some of the boulders the size of trucks. In fact it was often easier to bush bash than walk up the stream, and although it was hard work, we had a lot of fun. Reminding ourselves regularly as we hauled ourselves over yet another large boulder that there are tourists in Queenstown paying good money to go "bouldering" (the sport of climbing large boulders without harnesses - although they are surrounded by mattresses... we were surrounded by... large boulders). Although we didn't shoot anything, we had a deer run across about 10 feet in front of us, far too quickly for us to even think about taking a safe shot. Very frustrating! Especially after a 4 hour climb.

We took a few photos so that you could all appreciate the beauty without the hard work.

Some of the lower part of the stream:

Also the lower stream:

Once we got up a bit higher the stream got decidedly calmer (and clearer):

Although this only looks like a stream, you had to be careful as the water was so exceptionally clear, it only looked knee deep but some parts were over your head.

We got back out relatively unscathed, with the exception of a few decent bruises and a mildly scratched cornea on Andrea's eye, which ended up with a trip to A&E this morning (don't worry, she's fine).

In other news, Andrea has a new job which she'll be starting in early December. Greg's work is still going well, but he's very busy and looking forward to Christmas when he'll get a long break and a chance to catch up with his family who are all coming to stay with us.

Roll on Christmas!

Afternoon Tea

As we have lots of visitors booked in for the next few months, we bought an annual Gondola pass each. Being an unusually dirty afternoon, weather wise, there wasn't a lot else to do other than go up the gondola for afternoon tea.

The ride up was... interesting. A front hit Queenstown as we were about halfway up, resulting in very strong winds and snow. The snow was actually going UP instead of down as the wind hit the mountain and blew the snow up and over. The second we stepped off the gondola up the top, they closed it down as it wasn't safe to continue operating. Apparently the winds were 85 km/hour, gusting 100 km/hour, and blowing straight across the gondola line. So we decided the obvious thing to do was to go and stand outside in the wind and snow and take a few videos.

Windsocks not necessary to determine wind direction or strength - Andrea's hair does the trick!

And for those of you who can't read lips, Greg was saying "Please honey, could you possibly hurry up and take the video as it is rather cold out here. Please."

Honest.

Just quickly

Sunrise over The Remarkables taken from the second guest bedroom (otherwise known as Jen's room) the other morning.

And over Cecil Peak:


Today we've been out hunting up past Makarora (on the way to Haast, in Mt Aspiring National Park). Unfortunately the wind was swirling around in circles and it was drizzling most of the time. Even though we spooked a deer in the bush we were unable to keep up with it so couldn't take a safe shot. A fun day none-the-less!

A brief respite

The "storm the size of Australia" that's currently spreading nasty weather over the country has brought snow to lake level and gale force winds for the past 24 hours. It cleared out briefly this morning, long enough for Greg to run out in his PJs and take a few photos! He's glad he did, as it's now just started snowing again.

Cecil Peak covered in snow, taken from the main guest bedroom upstairs. One of the benefits of living where we do is that the snow doesn't settle on the ground here very often due to living on the Peninsula and being surrounded on 3 sides by the lake. Because the lake is 8 degrees all year round it keeps the ground a bit warmer (the rest of Queenstown and Arrowtown has snow on the ground - and to be honest, scraping snow off the driveway gets boring pretty quickly!).


Ben Lomond and Bob's Peak up above the Gondola, taken from the deck outside the lounge.

Looking down towards Glenorchy - you can see the next front already charging up the lake towards us!

With snow forecast off and on for the next 5 days we're grateful for our woodburner. It's looking like a DVD weekend...

Tonga

Yesterday we got back from a week long holiday in Tonga. We stayed at Vakaloa Beach Resort which is on the north western side of Tongatapu (the main island), well away from the main city (Nuku'alofa) which wasn't the most pleasant of places. The market was interesting and there were a few nice restaurants but one day in town was more than enough!

The resort was fantastic, with a white sandy beach and us more often than not being the only ones on it.

Looking right from just out in front of our Fale (the restaurant is the building on the right hand side):

And looking left down the beach:

Through the trees from our Fale to the beach:

Looking back at the 3 beachfront Fales from the beach (we had the middle one):

When we booked, we saw that the website said we would possibly see whales from the beach, we expected them to be out on the horizon miles away. Not so. We could sit up in bed and watch the whales cruising past or even breaching (where they jump up out of the water and land with a big splash) just behind the surf break. This photo is taken from the restaurant one morning - not one of the closest whales but one of the few we were able to capture with a camera. Even big humpback whales move surprisingly fast when you're trying to snap a picture!

On Monday we spent the day on a kayak safari. We were picked up from our resort and driven to the far side of the island where breakfast on the beach had been prepared for us. There were only 2 of us, plus our guides and another member of their family so that whole table of food was for us. We didn't quite get through it!

We then set off kayaking towards a couple of outer islands. Our first leg was to a deserted island about 2km off the coast where we were given cold drinks and had a chance to walk around the island and explore things.

We then headed to the next island, only 10-15 minutes by kayak away, where we had lunch and had a couple of hours to relax and snorkel around a shipwreck close to the shore. A cyclone had blown the ship onto the edge of the drop off so for all you can see about 10m sticking up, it went about 100m down. The fish life was quite awesome.

Sunset at Vakaloa - this photo taken from the loungers outside our Fale.

We took a day long island tour around Tongatapu and learnt a lot about the island... and about Germany. Our guide, Hans, is a German married to a Tongan - there are a lot of mixed race couples in Tonga.

One stop was to a fresh water spring deep inside an underground cave - complete with stalactites and what we were assured were swallows and not bats... but we were less than convinced (fruit bats - flying foxes - are common on the island and are regarded as sacred.. we had a baby one living at the resort while we were there).

We also visited the Houma blow holes, which stretch for kilometres along the coast, with some blow holes producing columns of water up to 30 feet high. Again, not that easy to get photos of unfortunately, but here's a shot of Greg and the rest of the tour party standing on a lookout platform:

On the final night we attended the Tongan Feast at the resort, complete with Polynesian floor show. Andrea was thoroughly spoilt as the hosts had found out it was her birthday the day before and was taken up on stage and given a cake while everyone sang happy birthday. They also gave her a beautiful card and of course dragged her up later to dance with some of the local boys. Unfortunately Greg's shots of this didn't come out very well (Andrea is grateful) - it was quite dark. However Greg did get a great shot of the local girl performing the fire poi dance:

All over, we had a great holiday and managed to spend a good few days relaxing and taking it easy. The people were so friendly - we often had the owner's 4 year old daughter join us for dinner or lunch; she'd pull up a chair and put her plate on the table and start eating. It was great! Even if she did continuously beat Andrea at cards.

Powder Day

We had our friends Max and Fin and their little boy Morgan (2) staying with us over the past few days and on Saturday we all decided to head through to Cardrona for a day on the snow. The reports said a few cm of fresh snow overnight so we were pretty excited about getting up there for a day's boarding.

We decided to see just how much fresh snow had fallen in the back bowls (down towards Arrowtown from Cardrona - i.e. over the back of the ski field) and were rewarded with some of the best powder runs of our lives. Most of our hiking involves hiking up and then getting the reward of riding back down but yesterday we had to do the opposite (snowboard down, stop and then walk back up in the snow). The snow was so good that it required great willpower to stop - it was only the length of the walk back up that stopped us! After 3 hikes plus some time on piste with the others we headed home tired but VERY happy.

Sorry about the quality of the photos - we only took Andrea's phone up with us which doesn't have a very good camera.

Our 2 tracks in the snow

You can see the type of terrain and why it was so hard to stop:

Looking back up the hill

Greg at the bottom of one of the runs in between our two tracks

Greg's New Toy

After much patience on Greg's part, his new truck has finally turned up! Thankfully he is a very patient person so it wasn't at all hard on Andrea...

A tad frosty

Recently the newspapers have been reporting that it's been cold down here. Last Sunday was the third coldest day in Queenstown on record (for July, at least). We've now had 3 weeks straight of frosty mornings, and Queenstown got down to -7, with -9 and -13 in places like Arrowtown. Frosts day after day mean hoar frosts down here (frost in the morning that doesn't melt during the day, with a new frost on top the following morning). In some places the frost has built up to 8 inches thick and looks like snow. There is also still a bit of snow around in places from the fall to lake level over 2 weeks ago - which is pretty much unheard of. Our driveway has had permanent ice on it for nearly 2 weeks, making getting the car out of the garage a bit more interesting each morning!

Unfortunately there hasn't been any fresh snow to accompany the cold weather, but we're making the most of the sunshine during the day and getting out and doing some of the things that we'd normally do in spring. So yesterday we headed back up Mt Crichton to get a bit of fresh air and get out of the house. In the bush it's relatively warm, but in the clearings there's still a bit of snow around from 2 weeks ago, and the hoar frost has built up on top since then creating awesome ice crystals. Some of them are 2-3 inches long.

We continued on up to the lookout over Lake Dispute, which we've shown you all before: http://gregandandreajarvis.blogspot.com/2009/03/lake-dispute.html but this time around it's a little more impressive:

And now for something completely different...

Today we decided to make the most of SnowFarm's "Locals' give it a go day" and headed up to try Nordic Skiing, otherwise known as Cross-Country Skiing. The SnowFarm is the other side of the valley from Cardrona Ski Resort (on the sunny side!).

It was definitely different. We both tried "classic" x-country skiing where you are mostly kept in tracks on the snow (like train tracks). The skis are really light, with no metal rails, and a section in the middle of the skis with "grippy bits" that look like fish scales to help you push forward (and not slide backwards going up hill). It's definitely hard work but really rewarding (especially on the bits where you get to fly downhill without slowing down). Next time we won't be wearing thermals underneath our snow gear - it's hot work!

We managed to score a beautiful day, and the snow conditions were also close to perfect. The atmosphere up there was great, everyone was so friendly and helpful. Not too many people either, which is a pleasant change at this time of year (being Winter Festival and the beginning of both NZ and Australian School Holidays).

Here's Andrea with all the gear on, midway through our last run of the day

And a photo of the two of us, courtesy of Greg's ex-workmate Kane (from Element)

Mountain Road

On the way down the Remarkables Mountain Road on Sunday (4 days after Wednesday's snow to lake level):

Lake Hayes Estate in the foreground, looking towards Coronet Peak

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.