New Zealand - By Day & By Night

Saturday dawned fine & warm. Yes it was 5 degrees. It's amazing how warm that seems after -2. The intrepid skiers decided that we would return to Coronet Peak to see if we could remember our lessons after our day of rest. Bett & BB by virtue of being tourists got to sleep in (what else is a Saturday for?) Once again we arrived at Base Camp, found a possie and got 'those damn boots' on again. I was a touch concerned as I beginning to feel a bit of an affinity with them by now - what was happening to me, I wondered. We all headed off to our chosen slopes and skied away until hunger pangs brought us in for lunch. Today I even managed to give up my obsession with hugging snowboarders. Or was it the video footage from the other day that was the catalyst for this. 1,2,3.....Thanks for that Pete. Still it was very liberating to know that I can go around them with confidence instead of meeting them nose to nose.

Coronet Peak is a wonderful mountain to learn to ski on. It is close to town, an easy road to drive up and shuttles from the many car parks when it's busy. Great slopes to cater for all levels of expertise. Amazing views from every slope. They also have Night Skiing on Friday & Saturday nights. As Marg had tickets for this we decided that we would leave the mountain after lunch and return at 6.00pm for an hours skiing at night - just to say we had done it. So home we went for a well earned rest between our adventures, shopping & cooking dinner during this time. My turn to cook so Spagetti Bolognaise was easy to prepare now and eat later.

Bett & BB joined us for our night time adventure. We arrived back at the Peak as planned at 6.00pm, put 'those damn boots' back on and hit the slopes again as the light faded away to dark. The floodlights were on and it was an amazing sight. We were surprised at how quiet it was. The upside of that was there was plenty of space to ski and almost no snowboards. We discovered them later. Our hour turned into 2 1/2 hours though watching Marg, Pete & Bill disappear up the chairlift (for one last run) with the cloud almost over the whole mountain was a little disconcerting. The rest of us were entertained by the snowboarders who had set up a ski/board jump from the deck of the Base Camp cafe, down the stairs to the car park area below and proceeded to hold competitions to see who could get down without falling. What an amazing night. The guy on 2 ski's with the stubby won our prize of the night. Off the chair, down the rail and onto the snow without spilling a drop. On the deck were a couple of portable pot belly fires keeping people warm. What an adventure.

Home to eat, watch the 'rushes' & plan for tomorrows return to the Remarkables - urgh that road again.