Hi,
Isn't September flying by? We had a fantastic weekend driving into the teeth of this storm the size of Australia. I think it's a media beat up as the weather was bad, but nothing unusual for this time of year. More problems were caused by the very wet winter we've had already with the extra rain on top. But more of that later.
Friday was really bad weather so Mike made the call (very sensible) to head off early Saturday morning rather than late Friday night. Good thing too. The traffic was diabolical on Friday evening. It took me 50 minutes to drive home from work (our car was here, packed and ready to go, you see). With no traffic I'd be lucky to get to 10 minutes before I get home. It was amazing. Mike had drinks after work, until they had petered out and then we walked up to where I was stationary in the car and got in.
So, we got up at 5am and threw ourselves in the car. We collected Ilske from Mt Vic (our paying tramping club passenger) and headed off via Maccas for brekkie. By the time we got to the Chateau at the bottom of Whakapapa there was thick snow all around, it was snowing, and the road was closed. Tourists were frolicking in the snow on the golf course below the chateau. We checked out the likelihood of getting up the road (the chap said yes, but there was no guarantee we'd get back down) and headed off for lunch in Turangi followed by a soak in the hot pools at Tokaanu.
By the time we got back to the Chateau, the Tabor had arrived for their weekend of luxury celebrating Josh and his mother's birthday so we had champagne with them in the very posh lounge of the Chateau. The snow has washed away with the heavy rain. Then I drove up the hill with the chains on. Mike got soaked putting them on. A 4WD coming down looked disparagingly at our vehicle and said it was very difficult conditions up above with huge lumps of snow. I thought I could turn around if I needed to. I now think they were 4WD owners from Auckland with no idea about snow at all.
The road was clear all the way to the car park where we encountered about 2 cms of wet snow with torrents of water running through it. We had our ski gear on and climbed the hill to the lodge. We fell through to our thighs in many areas. Toby was light enough to scamper over the top of most of it. The lodge was a very welcoming sight. Cup of tea and I was right as rain.
We were then treated to constant blizzards until we left the next day. The wind was very strong and the snow often horizontal. We cooked dinner (nachos entree and spaghetti bolognaise main) and Toby and I fell asleep by about 8pm!
Sunday the Tabors came up to visit and they took Toby out sledding. Apparently he liked digging snow cave holes more than hurtling down the hill. Too risky he told Aidan.
Then we packed up and left. SH1 was blocked by slips, as was SH4 (the alternate route back to Wellington). But by the time we got to the main slip south of Taihape it was open to one lane. In the 20 minutes we were there we counted 7 huge truckloads of dirt being cleared away. Wow.
In other exciting news! Go the Saints! Go, go, go! They are in the Grand Final against Collingwood. Two teams with woeful finals outcomes. Who wants it the most? We'll be eating pies and watching it on Saturday!
I slept like a log last night! Back at work and busy this week.
Have a great week.
Love,
Angela
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