Joe and Lou's Travel Blog

Photos from this snow trip are now up.

Day 1

This time we were blessed by the weather gods having left behind our unlucky charm...you know who you are :)

We got to Ohakune at lunch time and, after a quick bite and Lou hiring some skis, we were up the mountain to enjoy 2 ½ hours of blue skies, empty runs and fresh pow at Turoa. After the chair lifts stopped we headed on down and drove round the other side of the mountain to the Chateau.

After dropping off our stuff in our room we headed down to the Pihanga Cafe, one of the eateries inside the hotel. The cafe was full of riff raff who were staying at other accommodation and was quite busy. We went to bed happy that we had had at least some fine weather as the forecast was not good for the rest of the weekend.

Day 2

We awoke early to thick fog outside. You could not see more than 50 metres out our window. The forecast was bad but we pulled our gear on and headed up. As we arrived at Whakapapa it was drizzling. Only the lower mountain was open so it was busy. Within half an hour we were soaked through. Our friends David and Stacy had come up for the weekend and texted to find out what it was like. Based on our reports they decided to give it a miss. Although the rain stopped the cloud never lifted and it got colder as the day went on. As we were leaving we bumped into Maggie, another friend who now lives in Hamilton. We agreed to meet the next day.

Returning to the Chateau we ventured out to the local pub for some lunch. In the afternoon we enjoyed the heated indoor pool and sauna. That night we dined at the main restaurant in the hotel. They have a dress policy of no jeans but I was the only not wearing them! Although the food was nice the service let us down. First they forgot our drinks order then our side dish and lastly mixed up our bill, twice!

Day 3

Perfect clear skies! We got up and headed out reasonably early but had to wait to get chains fitted. The fresh snow from over night was great and we had some good runs in the morning. We met up with David, Stacy and Maggie for lunch. Afterwards we went up and did a few runs with Maggie and her man Paul. It was great to catch up with Maggie and talk about previous ski trips.

Back at the hotel we recovered by having room service and relaxing in our room watching movies.

Day 4

No fresh snow today but clear skies again. Being a Monday there weren't so many people but it was still busy. After spending an hour on the lower slopes while the snow softened we headed over to the west side of Whakapapa where the runs are much wider, longer and less crowded. This was a first for Lou and she loved it. Lou even went down the steepest run a couple of times. Another first for Lou was going up the T-bar. After one false start she got it and was fine. By mid afternoon Lou was tired out and it was time to head back to Wellington.

And so ended our first successful ski trip of the year.