Ski Weekends 2004

We left Auckland not long after 7ish, and made good time due to not getting stuck in southern motorway traffic as is often the case on ski trips. We paused at the Huntly McDonald’s drive-through to grab a ‘snack’ (in Brendan’s case a Mac Attack combo), intending to stop later in Te Kuiti. However we discovered the truck stop place in Te Kuiti obviously isn’t open very late on Thursday nights. We filled up in Taumaranui as per tradition and arrived in Ohakune at around 11pm.

Brendan's alarm woke us up at 6.30 the next morning and we eagerly awaited the ski report. The forecast had been less than inspiring, but we were hoping for some miracle clearing of the skies, as has been known to happen, though not often to us. Alas the report was pretty much as expected, but on the bright side both sides of the mountain were open to some extent. At first it sounded like Whakapapa might be a better bet as the visibility sounded a bit better (100m to unlimited in comparison to Turoa’s 25 to 100m), but a later report had the Centennial and Rock Garden chairs closed, while at Turoa the Parklane was open, and there was a promise of the other lifts opening when de-icing was complete.

After a fairly relaxed, yet brisk breakfast we managed to get on the road by around 8am. We found ourselves in about the 4th line of cars in the top car park, which we were rather pleased with. The weather situation didn’t look too gratifying at that point, as it was snowing and quite misty. But we hooded ourselves up and prepared to face the conditions. Once we got onto the chairlifts we found that it wasn’t as cold as it might have been. Although the report had been ‘strong winds’, there weren’t much sign of those except for the occasional exposed spot. There was plenty of fresh snow around, meaning perfect skiing conditions, and very few other people on the slopes. The visibility wasn’t too great, but once we had done the run and knew where we were going we found this didn’t bother us too much. The recent bad weather had caked the chairs with layers of ice, which Brendan and Gavin took great pleasure in breaking off and throwing at each other, much to my annoyance (which of course just encouraged them more), especially since I usually somehow ended up sitting between them. At about 11am we called an early lunch after a particularly uncomfortable run in which the snow had frozen to hail like status, making it very painful to ski through.

We sat in the café and ate our lunch, giving us time to dry and thaw out. After about an hour we noticed the visibility had improved outside, and the snow had mostly ceased, so we ventured out again. As was our usual luck, by the time we had got on the chairlift the visibility started closing in again. They had opened the Giant, so we progressed onto that. Our first run down had pretty bad visibility, but on subsequent runs the visibility improved at various times. At one stage the skies cleared and a large amount of blue sky was to be seen and the sun shone right through, brightening up the slopes. Typically this was while we were seated on the chairlift, and by the time we’d got to the top it was pretty much back to normal. Our one stroke of great fortune did come though – just as Brendan was thinking about bailing, we decided to give the High Flyer a go. At first the visibility was pretty bad, but then the sun suddenly poked through, revealing the whole slope, and we found ourselves flying down a field of soft fresh snow that had been barely even skied on! The whole trip was worth it just for that one moment. The other great thing about the day was that the forecast must have scared everyone else away as we didn’t have to wait in a queue at all the whole day. In fact on the High Flyer we hardly even saw another person skiing at all.

We called it quits at about 3.30 after a run with particularly bad visibility and headed down the mountain feeling we’d had a pretty good day’s skiing despite the not quite ideal weather. This left us with plenty of time to have showers, look in a few ski shops (Brendan was looking at ski boots) and then head to our favourite dinner spot “Sutz” for some wonton soup and Chinese food. Our evening’s entertainment programme consisted of Epiphany (Midori and Crème de Menthe) and Black Dream (Baileys and Opal Nera) shooters, Rummikub and Boggle. No mention will be made of who won Boggle. Despite Brendan’s best efforts he couldn’t convince anyone else to partake in a threesome, so at about 11.30pm we retired to our own sleeping quarters and slept.

Once again 6.30 was wake up time. The ski report was even worse than it had been the day before – not entirely unexpected. Turoa was all closed, Whakapapa had lower lifts open with others on hold, but with winds forecast to increase it didn’t seem likely. The visibility was reported as 25m. We decided we’d pack up and go up to see what it was like. We got up there around 9am, and discovered that there were quite a few people in the car parks (down to car park 4). It was very misty (even more so than the day before) and raining (which is worse than snowing), so we made a quick decision and headed for the hills – the ones you go over to get to Turangi. There we played adventure mini golf, then went to the Mustard Seed Café for a second breakfast (in true Middle Earth fashion) of omelets. Next stop was the Tokaanu hot pools, and then we headed home the Turangi way, around the western side of Lake Taupo through Tokoara. We made a pit stop in Tirau at the Alley Cat café for a drink & cake. After an uneventful drive home, we arrived back at our place at around 5pm.