Ha ha. Attention grabbing title, or what?
All this blog's about Sept 20th from about 8am to 10pmish - busy day in some respects.
The 1st pic was taken from the road off SH8 leading to Lake Ohau & the ski field. The road up the mountain you can see is the one I was on to take pics 6 & 7. Not much apparent snow, but I managed to keep busy all day.
Still no luck with photographing Keas, though. No sign at all at Ohau, even when I got carrot cake - see below :-)
Pic 2's not brill, but down those valleys lie the Big hills.
Pic 3 is a bit of a close-up of them, & pic 4 is me trying to be artistic again!
Shame you can't properly see the lovely spring green of the trees - willows, I think?
The big flat lump in the middle of pic 5 is Aoraki. Weird how it looks completely different down this valley. Mind you, Bruce said much the same thing about Mt Somers (the lump, not the village)
6 & 7 are taken from the road you can see in 1. The road back out to SH8 is on the flat brownish bit.
The next's before 9am. I was the 3rd person on the slopes & had skied down by 0900!. Karl from Liverpool had sorted me out with skis & was a rugby fan. We agreed the all-round awful kicking performances were due to the balls & not wind (or else Johny would have had no excuse for being crap in the covered Otago stadium, would he?)
Next shows the off-piste run above the chair (there's only 1 chair here). As at Hutt, I didn't fancy a trek up hill to ski something that may not be that nice. A decision proved correct later in the day when I watched 3 English come down & all complained about the snow.
I went down to the right off the chair & did Easy Off (a green - see below) for a warm up & then headed off left on the blues around Wedding Knob (Kiwi SOH again ;-p ), Powder Bank (not powder!) & Sun Run (very sunny & therefore already getting sticky by 10.30)
I continued the morning with a few runs down Lower Sutton, which, while also in the sun, had been less skied (it's a black), & was more fun than the Sun Run.
About 11.30 I decided I'd have an early lunch & did the Boulevard back to the cafe.
Having ordered the usual brew plus a bacon, brie & chicken sarnie I decided to elongate the break by stripping off a bit & joining Elton for a sunbathe. He told me it was the last week Ohau would be open. Hardly surprising given the heat!
While we were chatting, 1 of the instructors came by too - Clair from Edmonton, & we had a bit of a chat about Canada's performance in the RWC so far.
Having ordered the usual brew plus a bacon, brie & chicken sarnie I decided to elongate the break by stripping off a bit & joining Elton for a sunbathe. He told me it was the last week Ohau would be open. Hardly surprising given the heat!
While we were chatting, 1 of the instructors came by too - Clair from Edmonton, & we had a bit of a chat about Canada's performance in the RWC so far.
After lunch I went across to the blacks off the High Traverse & the next pic shows where the traverse ends & drops off piste onto the various gullies & bowls - all in sight of the cafe, so no hiding if you wipe out!
I did Tom's Drop 1st - a couple of times (see next pic) before moving over to do Escalator. I did 7 runs down the various skiable bits during the afternoon.
Having done wiggles down a bowl 2 or 3 times, I took a few pics
They're not very good wiggles, but at least they're mine. Apart from a couple (man on board, woman on skis) going down once, I didn't see anyone else skiing these slopes all afternoon!
There had ben a bloke at the bottom of the chair all morning (in the shade), who was up top after lunch. This is him tuned into his IPod! Good job no-one needed help off the chair!
These wiggles aren't mine. It's the off-piste run from earlier having been wiggled on. The person at the top is the last of the English to set off down it - female.
I was hoping a kea or few would be interested in a bit of scran, but, like I said above, no sign of any round here. Perhaps too hot? There were loads in the snow at Porters.
BTW - it was delicious :-))
A pic of my afternoon tea with my wiggles in the background.
Then the shot of the day, I think? Aoraki from the south west. I think it looks even more of a lump from this angle.
I think you can just see the end of Lake Ohau through the tree, as well?
Although it was well after 3, the water was still enough to reflect the mountains. You normally only see still water first thing in the mornings.
The next pic I uploaded was taken while driving down. A campervan passed me while I took the last pic, & I thought I'd give you an idea of what it was like on the very dusty road down! However,I managed to delete it while tidying up. Again :-(
This is the last shot of Aoraki. Not sure what the pointy one next to the tree is?
Then we come to the nude bathing!
Once down, I drove the 17 K to Omarama (Oh marama, not Oh ma rah ma, Chris at Twizel said), & booked myself in for a hot tub. It was just before 5 when I got in & gone 7 when I got out. I wasn't too wrinkly & prune-like, though - hehe
The reason I was in so long was because I wanted pics of the stars as I'd chosen to soak rather than go to St John's observatory & see the stars from there.
That's a plan for my next visit.
Anyway, that's my foot, looking back in a Ohauish direction.
The next 2 are my head from a similat angle. I took a few of the 1st before I managed one that wasn't indecent ;-p It makes my chin look weird, though. Brucie springs to mind!
The next 2 were about 40min later when the setting sun's shadows made nice effects on the hills.
I hung around for ages waiting for the sun to go down & the stars to come out, & then played around with the setting on the camera & the number of seconds exposure. As I discovered, it was very hard to hold it still for 15 secs while almost floating in a hot tub (you may be able to make out the shadow of the chimney?). I decided to get out & put it on the step once I'd set it for 30, then 60 secs. Eventually I managed a pic, which when viewed on my big telly actually shows some stars :-)
Not bad for a luddite leaning technodunce!
Unfortunately, these pics are too small, so you'll have to take my word for it :-)
Satisfied I'd got a star or 2, I got out, dressed & went back to Twizel. I had fruit for tea, as I wanted to go across to Speights again. As there was a game on, it was considerably busier. No sign of the Irish guy, though.
Can't remember if I'd managed to get last Sat's ride route uploaded. If not, here it is. If so, here it is again! And thanks again to Bruce. And, Liz - don't forget our plan to ride with Bruce next time I'm out :-)
They're not very good wiggles, but at least they're mine. Apart from a couple (man on board, woman on skis) going down once, I didn't see anyone else skiing these slopes all afternoon!
There had ben a bloke at the bottom of the chair all morning (in the shade), who was up top after lunch. This is him tuned into his IPod! Good job no-one needed help off the chair!
These wiggles aren't mine. It's the off-piste run from earlier having been wiggled on. The person at the top is the last of the English to set off down it - female.
I was hoping a kea or few would be interested in a bit of scran, but, like I said above, no sign of any round here. Perhaps too hot? There were loads in the snow at Porters.
BTW - it was delicious :-))
A pic of my afternoon tea with my wiggles in the background.
Then the shot of the day, I think? Aoraki from the south west. I think it looks even more of a lump from this angle.
I think you can just see the end of Lake Ohau through the tree, as well?
Although it was well after 3, the water was still enough to reflect the mountains. You normally only see still water first thing in the mornings.
The next pic I uploaded was taken while driving down. A campervan passed me while I took the last pic, & I thought I'd give you an idea of what it was like on the very dusty road down! However,I managed to delete it while tidying up. Again :-(
This is the last shot of Aoraki. Not sure what the pointy one next to the tree is?
Then we come to the nude bathing!
Once down, I drove the 17 K to Omarama (Oh marama, not Oh ma rah ma, Chris at Twizel said), & booked myself in for a hot tub. It was just before 5 when I got in & gone 7 when I got out. I wasn't too wrinkly & prune-like, though - hehe
The reason I was in so long was because I wanted pics of the stars as I'd chosen to soak rather than go to St John's observatory & see the stars from there.
That's a plan for my next visit.
Anyway, that's my foot, looking back in a Ohauish direction.
The next 2 are my head from a similat angle. I took a few of the 1st before I managed one that wasn't indecent ;-p It makes my chin look weird, though. Brucie springs to mind!
The next 2 were about 40min later when the setting sun's shadows made nice effects on the hills.
I hung around for ages waiting for the sun to go down & the stars to come out, & then played around with the setting on the camera & the number of seconds exposure. As I discovered, it was very hard to hold it still for 15 secs while almost floating in a hot tub (you may be able to make out the shadow of the chimney?). I decided to get out & put it on the step once I'd set it for 30, then 60 secs. Eventually I managed a pic, which when viewed on my big telly actually shows some stars :-)Not bad for a luddite leaning technodunce!
Unfortunately, these pics are too small, so you'll have to take my word for it :-)
Satisfied I'd got a star or 2, I got out, dressed & went back to Twizel. I had fruit for tea, as I wanted to go across to Speights again. As there was a game on, it was considerably busier. No sign of the Irish guy, though.
Can't remember if I'd managed to get last Sat's ride route uploaded. If not, here it is. If so, here it is again! And thanks again to Bruce. And, Liz - don't forget our plan to ride with Bruce next time I'm out :-)
So having watched the 2 1/4 finals from silly o'clock on a Saturday morning, I'm off now
OAO
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