Hi Everyone.
First real touch of Autumn at Coronet this morning. Season passes are done, cottage booked and flights done. Hard into training getting ready. Won’t be long now!!
This year saw a new area manager appointed to Coronet, Nigel Kerr. Nigel is well known in the Wakatipu Basin area and has extensive involvement in the snow industry. He also has a wee companion who goes almost everywhere he goes, including skiing. This pint sized bundle is Oscar! He is an adept bolter down the slopes and also loves playing soccer with balloons! An absolute hoot to see.
Thanks for stopping to talk to us on Monday Nigel and we look forward to seeing you nest season.
Yaaay, freshies!
Hi everyone. Well, what a final day it has been. We woke this morning to light rain at home and on the way to the mountain the info sign warned of chains required. First time this season. Ha ha ha, a pox on all the ski teams who laughed at us putting our chains on early. 5 minutes up the road, whammo, karma. Vans & cars everywhere. We trundled on past with really smug smiles. We sailed through a really good snow flurry and by the time we got to the carpark it was obvious that last night and early this morning there was snow! Added to that they had the snowmakers selectvely running. Bit foggy to start with plus a few lift problems meant only 1 main lift running.
Suited me perfectly as I had another lesson with my instructor. What a blast. Have achieved waaay more this season than I had ever imagined. Just a pity Roger was not 100% for the first 12 days, but we have had a wow of a time. A massive thank you to my wonderful staff for taking care of things and letting us get away. It has been a sanity saver.
It has been wonderful rekindling friendships with a lot of the local crew we have gotten to know over the years. Only downside is our friend Sir Les Brough did not come up this year 🙁 Sending you a big shout Les!!
So, here we are. Cleaning, tidying and enjoying lots of medicine on our final afternoon. Have uploaded more photos from today and we look forward to being across the ditch soon. There will be a few more photos & videos which I will upload when we get home!!
Cheers!
C & R
Hi everyone!
Been a few days, so it’s time for an update. As you can see from the photo above we were a bit bored, so we took a snow groomer out for a morning spin. Yep, we had an entire ski field to ourselves. Private indeed. Just one problem, the field was shut!!!!!
We have had a few mixed days as far as conditions go. Not exactly blog inspiring I’m afraid 🙁 We have had very little snow, in fact the only real snow we had was last weekend. Gave the field a very welcome top up. We had bad weather Thursday & Coronet was closed so we went over to Cardrona for the day. Huge field and it’s on the “to do” list for next time. Have also had a lesson with my trainer and exceeded all expectations, in fact have achieved the highest ski run yet. So happy. Ticked off another goal.
Roger is back to his normal self, took a huge stack yesterday but apart from being a bit sore is good. I have uploaded a few more photos. Not many as weather has been a bit so so. Came up with a new phrase today. It was a boggy snoggy day ! In other words: wet, muddy, snowy & foggy…
Still having a few issues with editing videos. I have to get a decent editor, so our videos may not get uploaded until I get home. Sorry about that but I really can’t use up our hosts bandwidth downloading programs.
Anyhows, have just said goodbye to our hosts at the New Orleans pub. Had another smashing feed and now it’s time to kick back & watch Highway thru Hell.
C & R
Hi everyone. Well, sorry it’s been a couple of days since we last updated. The weather here has more resembled spring rather than winter. It has been warm & no snow. We have watched as the snow line receded day by day and each weather system missed us. Finally, tonight, we have had a glimmer of hope. It actually snowed!!!
We have had a couple of little dustings but today we saw a reasonable snow dump. 6cm at the top of the mountain, but tonight, it has started to really snow and more is forecast tonight.
Roger has finally just about shaken the last of the flu and his ear is well on the mend. Just don’t mention teeth. What’s that Skip, he forgot his prescription? Oh dear, what shall we do now! Not another damned trip to the doctor. He just needs more scottish medicine, that’s all.
We are really hoping that the morning gives us a mountain that has freshened up, in fact, we have set the alarm to get up & check. If it looks good we will break our “Sunday off” rule and head on up. Maybe! Would you believe it, Roger is actually looking forward to a day off. What’s that Skip? The Energizer bunny is a bit carked? Yeah, well, it is actually a holiday people. We’ll update again soon. Bye from across the ditch.
C & R
Oh dear oh dear. So, what do we do with the sickie sailor? Chuck him in quarantine. Oh wait, we don”t have one of those. Roger, go to your room!
So, we woke up yesterday ( Saturday ), and Roger wasn’t crash hot. He went downhill duting the day and by last night was as sick as a dog with a cold. Filled him full of oranges, strepsils, water & any other remedy we had and sent him to bed to sweat it out.
He woke up this morning much better but very washed out. Sunday is our usual day off so we will take it easy so he will be better tomorrow. In the meantime, today is washing day, coffee day, shopping day & do nothing much else day. The pikkie above shows a front coming across. Same one that hit south east Australia is about to descend on us. Hopefully it brings some much, much needed snow. It’s starting to get bare in places. It has just started raining which is a good sign but it is much warmer than previous days which means freezing level will be much higher. We shall see!
C & R
Uh-oh… Wee-ooo weee-ooo. Pull over driver.Well, here we were, tootling along after a wonderful night ski and suddenly it was all red & blue. ‘Allo, allo driver, and what have you been consuming this evening during your night ski then??? Look Mum, Highway Patrol NZ style…
Hi everyone. We have had a really good day. Reasonably early night last night as we knew today was going to go off. We hit the slopes this morning and have posted our first video of the season. Enjoy. We came down about 11 as usual, had a bite to eat. Ckecked our photos, etc. Uploaded the vid then had a quick snooze before we once more went back up to enjoy night ski.
We have always known the local boys in blue hit the roads of a Friday night and we actually joked about it on the way up. We were literally only a couple of hundred metres from home & suddenly there were the boys in blue stopping all cars & checking! We struck a really jovial officer ( maybe something to do with the old boys club patch on Rogers ski jacket ) but we flew through because we don’t drink up on the hill!
Enjoy the latest batch of photos & the video. More to come.
C & R