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!