We had a marvellous time up at Mt Ruapehu. We left at 1730 on Friday but everyone (mainly Toby) wanted Maccas at Paraparaumu so that added a bit of time to our journey up there. We arrived quite late (2230 was it?) and crashed into bed with good intentions of getting up at 6am. We finally left the accommodation at 9 or so and Mike, Toby and I had fun at Turoa. The few runs I managed to get in were wonderful. Toby played a lot in the learners area and used his toboggan quite a bit but the main event involved lots of snowball fights.


Sunday we all drove up to Turoa but the high winds had closed the field. So we drove the long way (oops – I cannot navigate around the central North Island – it just confuses me no end) to Tokaanu and soaked in a hot pool for a while.

Monday we all went to Whakapapa and we set Toby back by trying to make him ski down from halfway because we had no idea Happy Valley existed – perfectly set up for doting grandparents to watch their learner grandson and ensconce themselves in a café. Now we know that exists, Whakapapa is the ski area of choice. Toby had a lesson on Monday and another one on Tues. His Monday lesson was with 8 other 5 year olds but Tuesday saw him the only young one in the lesson. So he got a one hour one-on-one lesson and can now turn with some prompting (point your pizza where you want to go – and he turns!).

Mum and Dad found the accommodation lacking. There was a strange incident with the chilly bin (the staff emptied the fridge in one wing and thought we ’d left and consumed the contents of our chilly bin) and the sound proofing is not great. Mike, Toby and I slept like logs though. But that might have something to do with skiing all day! They were pleased to see what skiing is all about and I think their overriding sense was why do we bother. Mike gave me lessons on skiing on Monday as we spent most of the day skiing together and I had an absolute ball! Mike kicked up his skiing to another level with these carving skis and he looked great. Now I have even further to try and ski as well as him!

Mike also tried out his new snowboard he bought in Tahoe. He says he has some work to do to get it to work well (more training on the bike and loads more hours on the board). I can ’t wait to head back up. There is so much snow! Maybe another long weekend mid Sept?

Ok. Time to see what I ’ve missed in the last two day here at work.