Mt Ruapehu Ski Week 14-22 August 2004

14th Brendan, Raewyn, Trudy arrive, dinner at Stutz, games n drinks

We had unfortunately planned our week long ski trip right in the middle of a vicious storm cycle that passed across the country. The dodgy weather was already well in progress by the time me, Trudy and Brendan set off from Auckland. Gavin had been down there 3 days and had not got much more skiing that one morning in Happy Valley. Knowing the precarious forecast situation we took our time driving down on Saturday, stopping at the Otorohonga Kiwi House and the Te Kuiti Warehouse to buy Boggle on the way. We arrived in Ohakune at around dinner time, and started a long tradition of eating at the Stutz café. That night we went to bed fairly early, rather hopefully thinking we might have to be up early to go skiing the next day.

15th No ski, Ohakune subaru weekend, free beanies, to Waiouru - museum, cafe, lunch, Tangawai, Shrek 2, new world, walk in bush, tea @ Stutz, sega rally

During the night it got so windy that I was afraid the caravan was going to blow away, so by the morning we didn’t hold much hope of going skiing.

That proved to be correct, as we awoke to hear that ski fields were completely closed, in fact not even a beginners slope open anywhere. We spent a few minutes planning our day, and it was decided we would head off the Waiouru Army Museum (I had never been there, and was finally allowed to drag everyone there despite having to put up with whining about the high frequency and/or recentness of their visits). On our way through Ohakune we made a brief stop to get a free Subaru beanie each and some free V – woohoo! It was the designated Turoa Subaru weekend, but the weather was too bad even for their alternative venue of the local golf course, so they were just standing on the road giving out free stuff.

Between Ohakune and Waiouru we discovered a long path of lovely sunny weather, but this disappeared by the time we pulled up to the museum. The tempting smell of fresh coffee was too much to pass by, so we stopped for a nice coffee break in the lovely museum café before starting our military education. I was quite impressed with the museum – it was very well presented and very interesting. Trudy was a bit put out by the lack of information of the Vietnam war, which was her current interest, having just completed a trip around that area. We then had lunch in the museum café before heading back to Ohakune just in time to catch Shrek II at the local movie theatre. This was the second time for Raewyn, Brendan and Gavin (Gavin had seen it only a few days ago), so luckily it’s a great movie that stands up well to multiple viewings. The cinema was an attraction in itself as it was a really old fashioned one with springy leather seats and a red curtain covering the screen – ah nostalgia!

The rest of the afternoon was occupied by a nice scenic bush walk (at the insistence that we needed some exercise) which started from over the creek from the motor camp and headed first one way out of down then doubled back and eventually came out at the Ohakune carrot. We also happened to come across an amazing Frisbee catching dog. After a photo stop at the carrot we walked down the street back to the caravan.

After another Stutz dinner (with a wonton soup tradition being started), we headed back to the caravan for another evening of various games, eg. Rummikub, Articulate and Boggle. Trudy stayed boringly sober while the rest of us got rather happy on wine and rum & cokes. The evening flew by and it was nearing 3am by the time we popped ourselves into bed.

16th skiing at whaka, 1/2 day cloud closed in. to turangi - cafe for lunch, mini golf, hot pools, tea @ stutz

We were counting on the next day being a no-ski day, which seemed like a logical conclusion given the forecast and the obviously bad weather outside. However we were foiled again, and the forecast came up with Whakapapa having unlimited visibility & a good selection of lifts open. Due to the previous evening’s enthusiastic entertainment programme 3 out of 4 of us weren’t feeling really too well, so we had a bit of a slow start. We didn’t get up to the mountain until around 11am, but got a park in car park number 2. The report had indeed been telling the truth as there were clear blue skies. However we discovered that there was quite a bit of wind, which chilled us to the bone and made the lift rides very uncomfortable. We managed about 2 runs on the Waterfall T then skied down the Waterfall chair, only to discover that the ride up had been closed due to the high winds. We then headed down the rock garden and only managed to get up once more before both the rock garden and centennial chairs were also closed. Hmmm… if only we’d got up earlier! Oh well, we made the most of the situation and headed into Turangi for lunch at a flash looking place called the Mustard Seed café, then a game of Mini Golf.

The mini golf course was pretty flash with all sorts of fun things, all modelled on attractions around the central plateau, eg. The ski fields, Tongariro Crossing, white water rafting, etc. Gavin once again won (we were starting to see a pattern), although I was quite pleased to have come second. We then looked around the crafts things that were part of the mini golf building and headed to the Tokaanu hot pools. That evening back at the caravan we played some more games but went rather more lightly on the alcohol and got to bed at a reasonable hour.

17th brunch @ fat pigeon, long time there, mtn bike 25km, old coach rd - hail, snow, 2 dogs, chinese for tea

We awoke to another terrible ski report. Our aim for the day was to go mountain biking, as we had brought the bikes all the way down here and we felt the need to do something a little adventurous. The forecast was the day was for snow to low levels, but apart from some frequent violent hail storms there was not yet any sign of that. We went to the Fat Pigeon café for brunch, and stayed there for some time, reading the available literature, of which Cleo was the most popular choice of most. We finally prised ourselves away and tried to physc ourselves up for our upcoming bike ride. Gavin had chosen the trail we would take, apparently a 10 kilometre ride, so it didn’t sound too onerous. We suited ourselves up with an appropriate mixture of riding and ski apparel and headed for the back country. The first part was a little ride through some nice bush around some lakes, which was quite nice. The next part we headed down a farm track and into a bog. The mud made for difficult riding conditions, and the muddy track seemed to go on forever. Adding to this was continued hail storms. Towards the end it turned into a kind of blizzard, with real snow, and at one point we were nearly mauled by some wolves (well we were chased by some ferocious sounding farm dogs anyway). We finally made it back out to the road, though we had ridden a lot longer than the expected 10km (the final total was more like 25km). The last part was along beside the train tracks, so nice and straight and level – though the cold was really getting to us by now as the snow storm had set in for good. Luckily it wasn’t too far back to the caravan, and we headed straight for a nice long hot shower. Feeling very pleased with ourselves for being such hard core mountain bikers, we had a guilt free dinner at Stutz and settled down for some more boggling.

The snow continued to fall into the evening, and by about 10pm the ground was covered with a layer of white. We had updates from Darryn and Sharleen who were headed down and became stranded in Taumaranui by road closures. Just as we were going to bed (about midnight) the power went off, which was quite exciting.

18th shar and darryn arrive, all day at larnes cafe, read, play rummikub, to powderkeg swim, dinner, games at caravan

We awoke to find the snow had stopped falling, but the storm had left several inches of snow on the ground. The radio told us that all roads in and out of Ohakune were closed – just as well we weren’t intending on going anywhere, though Darryn and Sharleen were still stuck in Taumaranui. Gav and I went for a walk through Ohakune to see the extent of the snow and to take a picture (sadly lost) of the Ohakune carrot in the snow.

Then we huddled back in the caravan and read, etc. until Shar and Darryn finally made it through from Taumaranui at about 10.30am. We were headed out to breakfast (Fat Pigeon was closed, possibly due to power cuts) to a café where we stayed for pretty much the rest of the day, reading and playing games. That evening we broke our tradition and went to the Powder Horn for dinner (after a soak in their hot pools). Shar proceeded to get quite drunk (she was very happy to share that fact). We went back to the caravan park to play board games. We decided to use the communal dining area as there were now too many people to fit very comfortably in our caravan. This proved to be a mistake as we made far too much noise for the liking of the camp manager (though it was only 9.30!), so we retreated back to the neighbouring caravan. Shar didn’t last long in her drunken state and she was tucked up in bed by about 11pm, while the hard out gamers (me, Brendan, Trudy, Gav) were up until past 1am trying to beat Gav in boggle, unfortunately still impossible.

19th ski whaka all day, schnapps for tea, hot pools

The next morning we awoke to find something very unusual, a positive ski report! Whakapapa had lower lifts open. We got ready quickly and headed up and got in car park number 2. It turned out to be great weather. Only the lower lifts (Centennial and Rock Garden) chairs were opened (rumours that other lifts would open didn’t come to anything), but we found plenty of fun in Tenant’s Valley and the Rock Garden, especially the terrain park. Being a Thursday, it wasn’t packed, but unfortunately the small number of lifts open meant reasonably long (though not unbearable) queues.

After we’d finished our day skiing we headed down for dinner at National Park and then off to the Tokaanu hot pools for another soak, then back to the caravan for an early night – we were optimistic that tomorrow might dawn to be just as a good (or better) ski day as today.

20th ski whaka all day, schnapps for tea, ski night whaka 6-9pm, $10 with season pass

Our optimism was rewarded for once with the great news that it was all go at Whakapapa. We raced up to the mountain to find another lovely sunny day, this time with a large number of lifts open. We had a great day on the slopes. Being a Friday, there was night skiing that evening, so we headed down for dinner at National Park, then back up for a 7pm start for night skiing. Night skiing was a new experience for us. It wasn’t nearly as cold as we had expected as there was hardly any wind – in fact it was a perfect night for it. After our full day on the slopes we had expected to get tired of it fairly quickly, but in fact we happily skied the full 3 hours. Although it was only the Centennial chair open, the rock garden provided loads of entertainment for us, and because there were very few others there we had lots of fun racing each other down. We were quite exhausted by the end of the evening though.

21st up early, ski turoa til 1ish, pack out caravan, dep ohakune 2.30, arr akl 6.45pm

The next morning was again a positive report (for both sides this time) so we headed up to Turoa. However things weren’t as good as the day before due to there being a huge number of people up there. The snow conditions were quite bad too, as the cold winds had turned the snow into lumps of ice (we found out these are called cookies). With our tired legs (from our marathon effort the day before) we had lots of trouble. Gavin was going home that day anyway, so he headed down at lunch time with Shar. Trudy sat in the cafeteria while Brendan and I stuck it out for a bit longer (Darryn was who knows where being staunch by himself at this point). It started clouding in and snowing at some point, so we kept Trudy company for a while, then headed back out when it looked as if the visibility had cleared up. But by the time we’d just got to the top of the Parklane it had closed right in again. We tried a different way down which we found had much better snow than anywhere else we’d been – bummer we hadn’t gone that way earlier, oh well. We gave it up and headed back down the mountain in time for a spa bath at the camping ground, which Shar had booked for us. We packed the car up as much as we could, did some shopping in Ohakune and went to Mountain Kebabs for dinner. More games in the caravan in the evening, then to bed.

The next day Brendan, Trudy and I were leaving for home so we were expecting a sleep-in, but we got waken up very early by Shar who was preparing to go up the mountain. Much to our pleasure, the report wasn’t very good, so we didn’t feel too bad on missing out on the mountain. Darryn and Shar left to go up the mountain and we packed up the car, then headed to Stutz for a hearty breakfast. We got on the road at about 10am, and headed straight home except for a stop to see the Raurimu spiral.