He has been a long time in the planning, many hours on Trade Me trying to find him and an 8 hour return trip to pick him up but here finally is our new pup. He goes by the name of Louie and is fantastic.
He is a Bichon Frise/Shih Tzu cross so doesn't shed and at this stage is very nosy and playful for about 20 minutes then sleeps for 30. He is mostly house trained, likes chewing on his toys and is a little scared of tiles.

Cardrona First Days.

Cardrona opened on Friday and we, being season pass holders, have been making the most of it. Sooo much better having the pass so we can go up when we want, park where we want and and go home if its naff. Which it isn't at the moment. Great snow, no crowds. Miserable weather down in town with an inversion layer and valley fog meaning everything is frozen and dull but beautiful sun up on the hill. I love Ohau but when its quiet up here, its great. Loads of room and runs and super fast lifts.
Not bad views down the cloud filled valley towards Wanaka. Here is Erica carving it up!
Birds eye view of your truly.



Took about 150 photos of E today using the sequence funtion on the camera. She liked this one.

Its been dark and dank here in Wanaka for the last week. Lights on in the middle of the day kinda stuff with low valley cloud keeping the temperatures down. But this afternoon the sun came out and we decided to take a walk down waterfall creek.
It was warmer today so plenty of run off from the snow which is rapidly melting at lower altitudes. More forecast for today though and from what we here the bases on the skifields are bullet proof and not going anywhere.

Quick post of photo from the Contact Epic back in April. Seems like a long time ago now. About 3/4 of the way through at this point and a bit puffed but soon realized I was nearly there and had a bit of 2nd wind.

The End

It had to happen I suppose but our trip has ended. We are now back in sunny but chilly Wanaka after a largely uneventful and sleep free return trip. Much better going this way than the other with no waiting around on concrete airport floors. Anyway, the wind finally came back for the last few days and it was good times at the Kanaha beach park. 5.3 weather but super fun with a decreasing NE swell breaking on the outer reef. Caught a few waves. Missed a bunch too and when you get tired of that its off to the channel for some blasting about and a few tricks. Some of the top guys in the world were there practising their slalom racing and testing sails. Robbie Swift and Kevin Pritchard absolutely flying around a couple of bouys. I tried to keep up but was lacking 2 1/2 metres of sail, 30kgs of weight and a whole bunch of technique. Good to watch though.
Kevin Pritchard.
Me this time.
Not one of my better ones.
I thought windsurfers just had ugly feet.
Sometimes the wind blew a bit of sand around and Erica had to take shelter.

Yesterday afternoon I took the car up to Hookipa to watch the waves sailing. Hadn't been there when it was windy and it was great to see some top guys out there. Young Kai Lenny who is only 15 or so was the standout. But it a zoo with 25 people out all sailing in the same spot and trying to get the biggest waves. And this was a pretty small day. If you get it wrong its time to get aquainted with the urchin infested rocks on the inside.

And the point turned on a special Maui sunset for our last evening.
So we left beautiful tropical weather with trade winds and got back to this! Auckland 7 AM. Blah. But snow is forecast and the mountains are already looking pretty good. So into another winter we go!