Weirdness

It seems like every time we go to Queenstown lately our plans get changed. This weekend was no exception. We were planning on skiing hard both Saturday and Sunday. This time the weather chose not to cooperate. High winds and poor visibility had forced the closure of one of the local skifields and put all but one of the lifts at the other ski area on hold for the day. Not being one to lose a profit, this ski area (The Remarkables) decided to still charge full price for nothing much more than the bunny slope.

After making the treacherous 13.5 km steep climb up the unsealed "road of death" (John's writing this, can you tell?) we were appalled at the state of affairs. After a number of ridiculous runs down the bunny slope we turned to each other and announced in unison, "This sucks...wanna see if we can get a refund?" and this we did. Fortunately, lady luck was on our side and the lifties hadn't bothered to scan our lift tickets, enabling us to claim that we had not yet skied for the day. After initial refusal the customer service representative relented and gave us passes good for various activities around Queenstown.

After much debate we decided nothing said fun on a cold, rainy day like an 80 plus kph jetboat run on the Shotover River. The spins rocked! There's nothing quite like getting pelted in the eyeball with a rain drop at 80 kph (roughly 40 mph) except when it was exchanged for the occasional piece of hail. The best part is that we didn't have to sign a waiver!

OK, that's the end of MK taking a dictation of John's words. He requires me to say, "End transmission". My husband's weird.

And now for the rest of the story...

Sunday was entirely different. We woke up and the weather was gorgeous. We drove up to Coronet Peak (a sealed road the entire way--what a luxury!) and got a fabulous day of spring skiing in. I think it'll sadly be our last day of the season because we'll need our bathing suits to continue "skiing" in the slush that remains up there unless they get some more snow.

We're lucky we live in NZ because when we returned our front door was literally wide open. John had checked it before he left (I was at work so am exonerated) but it must not have been fully locked after all. But since we apparently live in a country where criminals feel remorseful enough to break in again and apologize (see recent internet news for Wellington) we were not in any danger. Everything is still here and nothing was out of place. Ahh, rural NZ.

Another busy week ahead with work, prepping for my upcoming choir concert and competition, John's birthday, and travel plans. Sorry there are no pics of the weekend this time. We forgot the camera. We are looking forward to family and friends arriving before too long. Soon we'll be inundated with visitors--hooray!