Saturday 16 July 2011

Day 4a: Liars liars pants on fires

The ski report for Cardrona this morning promised "Sunny day with moderate SW winds, strong and gusty on the upper mountain", with unlimited visibility.

So we got up early (JD had a really awful night's sleep), packed all our gear and left the apartment about 7:45am. First stop was the ski hire place - we'd changed Ky's boots last night for something a little firmer, but forgot to take the skis in to get the bindings adjusted. Next stop was the supermarket for bandaids for Jos's blisters and some strapping tape for my wrist. And we were on the road by 8am, and to the top carpark a little before 9am.

And it was windy and gusty, like they said, but it was also white-out with very wet snow (aka sleet). Not as cold as yesterday, not quite as windy, but wet. And if you get wet you are miserable. It certainly wasn't sunny with unlimited visibility like they promised.
(This is part way back down the mountain, where the visibility was better.)

We hummed and haa-ed for five minutes, and in the end said, bugger it. It's too wet, too yuck. We've got two more days to go, and fingers are crossed for them.

So we backed out of the carpark and drove back down the mountain (and we weren't the only ones). We asked the guide at the bottom of the Cardrona access road, who checked in via two-way with the weather report guy, who advised they were expecting the cloud to stay for much of the day. Our decision was vindicated.

So we're now back at the apartment, have cuppas and hot chocolates and coffee (me, boys, JD respectively), and will switch out of our snow gear (but not our thermals), pack our togs and the like, and we'll head off to Queenstown for the day.

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