Snowboarding in Wanaka

The drive to Wanaka was against a landscape of lakes and mountains and the deeper we got into the Alpine areas, the greater the chill in the air....we could almost smell the snowboarding!

The beauty of Wanaka hits you imediately - a beautiful alpine town set against Mt.Aspiring range of snow-capped mountains with Lake Wanaka in the foreground. Nowhere else we have snowboarded in Europe can live up to the scenary on Treble Cone skifields. The views from the top are so amazing that even people who don't ski come up on the chairlifts to have a look. But my god, the slopes are steep. The greens are actually blues by European standards and the blues are actually reds and as they don't have reds, the blacks are, well, precipices! And you should see the drive up the mountain - 6km of gravelled road climbing up 1000m is a pretty hairy experience in a campervan, we can tell you.

Apres-ski is largely based around the bars and restaurants at the edge of Lake Wanaka and we spent a happy evening drinking jugs of beer and sampling our first curry for 4 months. Oh, to import a curry from The 4 Pillars in Olney - curries in New Zealand seem to be the only thing the Kiwis don't get quite right!

More lumps and bumps appeared on both of us during our time in Wanaka so another visit to the Doctor saw us both being treated with anti-biotics this time. At this rate, our lasting memories of New Zealand will be largely based on their medical institutions!

After two brilliant days on Treble Cone with perfect riding conditions, the third day brought slope closures and gale force winds. This seemed like a good point to drag ourselves away from the picturesque Wanaka and head for Queenstown. Firmly screwing on our adrenalin heads, we drove further south through past amazing scenary and even steeper mountains, through the pretty Arrowtown, to the adventure capital of New Zealand.