Maz NZ and Oz

I tried snowboarding for the first time this weekend. Lisa (my fellow surfer from work) and I got a bus up to Mt Hutt to spend the day on the piste on Saturday. Lisa went skiiing while I took a beginners snowboarding lesson. I had a cold on the day so I was feeling quite miserable and sorry for myself so unfortunately I didn't enjoy the day as much as I would have if I'd been in better shape. The other thing was that I had loads of clothes and jumpers and fleeces etc on, but it was something ridiculous like 19 or 20 degrees up there so I was melting away while other people were going around the place in t-shirts and vest tops... in the SNOW... But I'm still glad I went and I'll be trying snowboarding again next season.

My instructor was telling me that he will go the States for the snowboarding/skiiing season there when it's over in New Zealand and that he hasn't seen summer in something like eight years.... Madness!!

As you can see from the pictures, there's not too much snow left on the mountain. In fact, they would have been closed last week if it hadn't been for the snowfall last Monday. While the farmers were counting their losses from the cold snap, the ski resorts were celebrating... every cloud and all that I guess...

Anyway, here are some of the pictures I took from the mountain. It's not very clear from this photo because of the haze, but you can actually see all the way to the Pacific over the Canterbury Plains... it's pretty spectacular in person...