The weekend at Ruapehu

Hi,

Well, knock me down with a feather.  I have never ever had such beautiful weather up at Ruapehu.  Blue skies, no wind at all.  It felt like I was up in Northland rather than on the volcanic plateau.  Weird.

Ilkse and I drove up in the wee green car with Mike in the Corolla with Toby, Isaac and two other women from the Meetup group.  Poor Ilske - I sang loudly the whole way.  Hahahah.  The drive was lovely - top down the entire time and plenty of stars to look at.  I showed Ilske the Large and Small Magellanic Clouds.  You only see them away from the city lights.

Sunset on the drive up!

Into bed rather late - maybe after midnight.  It made it hard to get out of bed early.  I achieved this by remaining in bed until denial was extremely difficult.  We got away for our walk by about 10.30am.  Off to see Taranaki Falls - which are nowhere near Taranaki.  Just in case you're wondering.

Mt Taranaki in the morning from the lodge- in the far, far distance!

Selfie showing not a shred of snow on the skifield

Toby and Isaac begin the walk

Mike - why are you taking a photo of me that close?

Are you completely mad?

Nice spot for a rest

Ngaurahoe looking amazing!

Selfies with Ngaurahoe in the background

Toby got himself some new sunglasses.  He chose some aviators and loves them to bits.  Funny wee chap.  He does look cool in them!

I can see myself, Toby!

Sunset Saturday night

We went to the pub across from the chateau for Saturday night dinner.  Very nice - although a bit slow with the service.  My steak was good though.

Back up to the lodge and Ilske and I lay out on the deck and watched the stars for about 45 minutes.  I saw a couple of satellites overhead and two shooting stars.  Jupiter and Saturn looked good too.  Off to bed and I managed to finished my book.  Definitely a great weekend's achievement.

Up to have breakfast and cleanup the lodge.  We got an extra hour sleep in because daylight savings finished. A walk on the way home was discarded in favour of a cafe lunch!  Oh yeah!  Mountain Rocks in Ohakune.  I like that place!

On the way home in Ohakune

Iced coffee at Mountain Rocks cafe.  8.5

Ilske had to endure another 4.5 hours of me singing nearly the whole way home.  She has a lot of fortitude.  Wellington had the worst weather of the entire trip.  I had to put the roof up at Ilske's house.  Pesky drizzly rain.

Got home and did a mountain of laundry, tidying, ironing and generally fussing around getting things ready for the week ahead.  Mike had to drop people off around Wellington.  We were both quite shattered and I slept the sleep of the dead.

My run this morning was inside a cloud.  No rain, I don't think.  Just inside the cloud!  Funny place, Wellington.  Prince William arrives today - he'll hardly see the place!

Have a fantastic week!
Love,
Angela