Day 2: a snow-free day

We made an executive decision to have our rest day today, given the forecasts. Of course, it turned out to be a lovely day - we heard from one local that he'd had his best day in 15 years (he was at Treble Cone).

(View from the rear of the carpark at Puzzling World)

So we slept in, which was lovely, and then eventually set off for Puzzling World around 9:30ish. We spent a very enjoyable three hours there (see separate post), and came away with a few goodies, including a puzzle ring for me and for Ky, and a blow-moulded face of Einstein that follows you around the room. Oh, and a postcard for work. The site is on the south side of a very high rocky outcrop, so the sun didn't make it to the maze until around midday, which meant things were kind of icy until then.

We then went into town for some lunch, at the Wanaka Ale House and the far end of the strip facing the lake. It's got a grand view, looking out over Lake Wanaka to snow-capped mountains out the front, and more snowy mountains every way you look. It was really gorgeous, particularly when viewed from inside a nice warm room, with your arse warming by a fire.

Next stop was a ski-hire place (Wanaka Green Toad Ski Hire) which seemed to have pretty decent rates (when I checked out some other places, they were in fact very good rates - $22/day for adults, $16/day for kids for multiple day hire). And the service was excellent - Johnny was very chatty, picked out exactly the right boots for us first time off, and helped get all our stuff sorted. They even lent us a set of Allen keys so we could rejigger the roof racks to accommodate the skis (they were too close together to handle the bindings).

Finally, we went off to find a couple more hats - one for JD and one for me. These ended up being a fairly expensive exercise, but they're bloody good hats. JD's is an Icebreaker merino one; mine a Cloudveil one made from soft-shell type material, lined with fleece at the ears.

That should stop the headaches I was getting yesterday. We also checked in at the Cardrona office, but decided to hold off committing to tickets/ski school full day program - we'll go in at 7:30am tomorrow morning when the open.

We're back home now for a cuppa and a veg-out. I'm about to go for a swim, and pick up a few more ingredients for dinner (chicken curry, haven't decided whether it'll be Indian or Thai yet).

And we'll be up bright and early to decide which field we'll ski at tomorrow (realistically, Cardrona is our only option, at least until the kids have got their ski-legs sorted out.