Cadrona

Had a great day up at Cadrona yesterday albeit waiting at the chair lifts got to be a bit fraught. Mr Hart has no patience!  Think I’m getting the hang of this skiing lark now and can do all the trails that are currently open at Cadrona.  We did one run at Captain’s Run before giving up on the chairs.  There must have 300 people at the lifts waiting to get on the chairs.  So headed towards White Star where we were met with the same crowd. Only 2 more days of the school holidays and things should return to easy and quick.  My aim is to get to 25 runs on a single day.  So far the max I have done is 16 so have a way to go.  We ended up skiing Valley View and the Tail Race,  saw an horrific crash by a boarder, hit ice a few times, watched some people get lost off trail, had a great hot chocolate at the Little Meg Cafe. All very good fun (well apart from the boarder’s mishap!)  Took a great video of Rob skiing but unfortunately my free WordPress site does not support video.  Will have to pay up!

Cadrona is expecting more snow over the weekend so look out Monday!  Have included a link to the Cadrona trail page.  If you get through to this you can see a 3D model on the page or download the pdf of the trails so that you know which trail I’m writing about…

Cadrona trails

 

Weather

I have always loved the changes that occur over a landscape because of the weather.  Today on the Buchanan Range we are back to snow, lots of it!  After doing nothing yesterday because of sulky rain, we woke this morning to a whole new world.  All the mountains around us have snow on them once more.  It is still blowing a gale so we have decided not to go to Cadrona today.  Photos below of our beloved tree and the mountains behind. Heading out in a couple of hours to a street party in Wannas –  Light up Wanaka.

 

Health

Today it is snowing, well at least up at Cadrona it is.  Here in Wanaka it is a balmy 7°C and there is a gentle rain falling.  According to all reports it is going to be brilliant up at Cadrona tomorrow so have all fingers and toes crossed.

We have been doing lots of physical exercise and we are finding the skiing no great hardship physically.  I wonder if this means we need to push it a bit more.  Rob’s back is hopeless but he is controlling it with his stretching, voltaren and so on.  Have been tackling the weight issue once more (ho hum, story of my life!).  Am currently trialling the Michael Mosley fasting diet.  2 days fasting, 5 days normal eating.  Am actually finding it really interesting.  It is funny how a person can become very channelled.  I find the fasting easy to do so long as Rob doesn’t decide to cook something very tasty.  (Jokes aside, I’m pretty safe here as his cooking prowess rarely stretches beyond cheese toasted sandwiches).  So have just completed my second fasting and the body is feeling good!.  Tuesday afternoons are a bit hard but am learning to drink more water at this time to hopefully trick my brain.

Back to Cardona.  We have a routine now.  Even though it is school holidays we are still leaving to go up the mountain at 9.30 to miss the mad dash and dust at 7.30.  We are at the White Star carpark by 10.15 and at the chair by 10.25.  Usually we do most of our runs over at the Captain’s Run.  This part of the field is spectacular.  Large open runs with just a couple of narrow shutes where all learners hit lumps of snow, crash and burn.  We saw some terrible collisions yesterday with usually both people completely out of control.  No one going too fast though so no injuries as far as I could tell.  Ski for a couple of hours and hit the cafe for hot chocolate for Rob and Peppermint tea (the fast rules!) for me.  When not eating you realise how much absolutely terrible food people eat.  Cafe time actually turns me off food and it might be one of the factors making the fasting easier to do. We ski on until we’ve had enough, usually about 4 hours and then back to White Star to do a couple of runs.  Yesterday was the first time White Star was showing definite signs of need for snow with lots of icy patches evident.

The first 3 photos were taken over the weekend as we walked the western side of Lake Wanaka looking back towards the township. Our discussion was based around what we were going to do with the $40 000 000 we were going to win.  In this situation we are definitely ‘gonnas’ as our numbers were typically missing from the draw. The house is situated at the bluff where we stopped for lunch and is Rob’s dream home. Have to wait to next time to have one now.  Ah well, horse truck is cosy and warm and, ours.

The photos below are proof of rain in Wanaka, the first we have had since arriving in Wanaka June 1st.  Makes me feel as if I’m in Northland!  Thinking of you all up there facing yet more warm wet weather.  Rob is very happy, reading a newspaper from front to back and then through again.  What else to do on a rainy day?

The motorcamp leasees are mad on chooks, so hence the very fancy little chicken house which in front of the inverted trampoline.  All kids staying in the camp feed copious amounts of scraps to the 3 happy dwellers but there have still been no eggs. Think one of them is actually a rooster so they had better watch themselves or they will find themselves in the pot for Sunday roast. Pat, the camp caretaker is busy building a monstrous hen coop which is taking on ‘Grand Designs’ dimensions. We are going to have a Grand Opening celebration when it is finally finished!.

Cheers all. xx

Wanaka, walking, wondering

So, have been doing lots of walking the last few days as we wait for snow to miraculously appear out of powder blue skies.  The Met Service keeps telling us we are getting snow down to 1200m but there has definitely been nothing in reality.  Beside us is Mount Rob Roy (go figure!).  This has become our barometer for snow – if there’s snow on that peak, then things are looking up – at the moment it’s Central Otago bare. The photos below are where I walked yesterday.  Rob came from the opposite end of this track on his bike so I had lots of time to watch a few trout fishers, fantails and watch while gazillions of rabbits scattered in front of me like kids at the end of the school day.

These are segments of the Clutha River just below the Wanaka airport –  of ‘Wings over Wanaka’ fame.  As I was walking the activity in the skies was frenetic.  Helicopters, biplanes, flying school landings, sky divers.  I didn’t get the sense I was alone at all. The large photo is from the start of the track looking back towards Mount Aspiring.  I still haven’t got used to the bareness of the landscape.  There could be a reason for that of course.  It is winter and…… rabbits! Unbelievable how many were scattering in front of me.  At one corner it seemed as if the whole ground was moving, there were so many.

The river continues for about 40 kms down to Cromwell where it meets the Kawarau river before heading on down to the Clyde Dam.  At this part of the river there are lots of rapids still obvious but the track is about 100 ft above the river so no point in trying to get any meaningful photos of them.

Anusha and Pat, it was awesome to hear your happy voices yesterday as I was walking along.  The last photos for today I took while waiting for Rob who had under-estimated how long it would take him to ride downhill from Albert Town.  The rabbit holes are literally all over the place and I know this is a huge problem for landowners.  Wonder how the airport controls them?? You would all have laughed watching me get the ‘selfie’ photo done; running backwards and forwards waiting for the stupid light to go off my camera.  My camera was hitched on a briar bush to get this photo so every time I had to adjust my camera I was scratched by the world’s largest thorns.

 

Waiting, waiting for snow….

The sun is still shining and we woke to the most crystal clear day you can imagine.  The mountains are mighty, albeit snow bare.  Had a great day yesterday at Cadrona but very aware of the huge number of people and that the Cadrona team are working over-time to keep snow for us all to use.  Decided to take a day away from skiing and given that the weather is so mild, pulled the bikes out of the back and went for a short ride to the top end of Lake Wanaka.  5th July and no ice on the road.  Winter is definitely not coming to Wanaka at this stage.  The road follows Lake Hawea for about 20 kms.  Small open stretches and then a few twisty corners – perfect riding.  Over the saddle and you are hit by the spectacular view of mountains across Lake Wanaka.  The road narrows in places here and you follow the lake up to Makarora. It is a privilege to ride these roads and to be part of this landscape.  Mind you, every car that goes past, which to be honest, were very few, I am waiting for a tourist to do something dumb like pull out on the wrong side of the road in front of Rob or me. We have become very wary of cars parked on the road side as you just don’t know who is driving and what their road awareness is like.

At this time of the year the landscape is many shades of brown with a flicker of red, grey and green here and there.  The mountains at the northern end of the lake are very close, very steep and old. At Makarora we met up with a very intrepid young man who is motorbiking the world.  He was amazing and we had a great hour with him.  He headed north  to the Blue Lakes and after a good cup of coffee, we headed back to Wanaka.  His website is well worth a look at:  www.motaeastbound.com .  He’s biked all the way from Amsterdam, through the Middle East, Russia and China, survived Australia and is now spending a couple of months touring NZ.  Pedro was a very cool guy and could talk motorbikes all day long I suspect.  While nattering away Rob discovered his rear tyre is down to the canvas – talk about being maintenance savvy , not – so our ride back to Wanaka was fairly sedate in case he got a flatty.  All good and new tyre now ordered.  It has to come from Alexandra so currently the Buell is up on a block with no rear wheel – shop here can replace his tyre on Friday.  Things happen slowly here in Wannas.

So, it is now 4:30 and the sun is about to go behind the mountains to the west of us – just over the top of Treble Cone. Next big adventure, what to have for dinner?