SKIING!!!!!!!

Wanaka, New Zealand
Thursday, August 18th, 2011

Today a bunch of us went skiing/snowboarding. Last time I was skiing I was in Austria in 2008 but part of the reason I am in New Zealand now is to find some snow and do some skiing. Yes we have had a ton of snow and now I get to see if it will translate to good skiing.

The group of us ready to go. Evan was looking super excited. He's never skied before but was looking forward to learning.....as was Nikki.

I have already been prepared that although the skiing in New Zealand is considered some of the best in the world, coming from Canada I may not be that impressed by it (that's what people kept telling me anyway). I am a little disappointed that there are no trees on ski hills here and I will never be able to find knee deep powder but since I have been out of the game for a while, this could be a good warm up.

The Haka crew getting ready to hit the slopes.

Can't complain about the views.

We went to a place called Treble Cone. The boys (as in Burto and Verve and their friends Adam and Luke) love it……but I learnt quickly that this is because they are snow boarders and the hill is full of natural half pipes. I tried to explain to them that skiers don’t usually like half pipes but that’s ok. I found some good challenging stuff later.

The view did disappear a bit but that was just a bonus, not the reason I was there.

Loving having my own jacket and ski gloves. You can rent pretty much everything you need here (including jackets and pants) except gloves, and I was very glad not to have to buy any. I did buy some goggles though. I have more ski plans ahead though so totally worth it.

The clouds did disappear and the gorgeous view returned. It was pretty amazing. The snow, not that deep and you did have to watch for bare rocks and grass and stuff but overall a really nice day on the hill.

Once our skiing day was over, we headed to our final destination, Franz Josef. I’ve been looking forward to this stop all trip and tomorrow I will let you know why.

Julie