Mount Cook has a very small village at the foot of it. The views are comparable to being an ant in 50 metre high white sand dunes. That doesnt work either. The glaciers bring boulders down the hillside, the hills are carved as easily as cheese, the air is so clean it feels like it was made fresh that morning, the mountains so intimidating that they would suffice as a fortress.
The YHA in Mount Cook village is lovely, built in an alpine style, with a sauna, TV lounge, great kitchen and amazing views from the rooms. We met up with an Irish couple that had been staying at Vagabonds in Christchurch, and also attempted a couple of walks. The previous snowfall had made walking dangerous and many tracks were closed due to avalanche risk. This was to be a recurring theme over the next few weeks, but it didnt stop ius this day from walking up to a good viewpoint along a valley up to Mount Cook.
After the stroll, we got going and headed to Wanaka. Its a quiet town on the south end of a large lake. The lake itself doglegs, so you only see part of it. There was a problem on arriving; again down to the snow, there wasnt any room in any hostel or most motels as skiers and snowboarders had turned up for the fresh powder. We hunted high and low until we found a place with room and we had to resort to Lakeview Motel. This ended up being an excellent compromise. We had a veranda, and a studio flat, with TV, small sweet kitchen and amazing views, definitely better than those in town and we got the evening light while the rest of town had slipped into darkness far earlier.
We got aquainted with the town, and saw what there was to do. Skiing, which has never really appealed to me, appeared on the menu. Skydiving also made an appearance. We booked the skydiving and rang about the skiing. Skydiving for the sunday and skiing was organised for Monday and Tuesday. In the end the skydiving here was called off; another recurring theme. Instead we paid a visit to the Warbirds museum and the Puzzle town. Both on the outskirts of town, the former is a museum storing WWII planes and the latter is a collection of puzzles including optical illusions and a very very very large maze. I fell over in the optical illusion room and it could have happenned to anyone. There was a room full of holograms which were ok, but there was an optical illusion room with moulded heads of famous people. It meant their eyes really did follow you around the room, and surprisingly the image that was the most disturbing was Mother Theresa. I never thought I would get to say that she was disturbing, but Einstein, Churchill, Mandela and Beethoven were a joy to see compared to her.
The roast lamb cooked that evening was surprisingly good considering the size of the oven. I think Barbie had been the previous owner. We needed the feed as the next two days of skiing was energy intensive.
Our first lesson on the Monday was with a Maori skiier; you cant have preconceptions in this place. He was great and very relaxed. I seemed to go ok, while Cathy having skiied before, brushed up and was used as the model for us. b*(&%. The afternoon lesson was with another very relaxed guy, american, and looked far too cool. By the end of Monday I could snow plough, sorry wedgie, and wedgie turn. Whats more I LIKED it. I never thought I would say it, considering those Ski Sunday shows of past on BBC showing dreary downhill skiing had put me off. Its great, but I had started having a sense of humour failure when I got bored of falling over, especially at the top of the ski lift.
Tuesday was far better as I tried different runs and had a couple of runs where I DIDNT FALL OVER! Things were going well.
No comments:
Post a Comment