The Snow down South

  I came home from the snow on Monday night totally exhausted and a bit sick but very satisfied and happy. We had an amazing time down on Mount Ruapehu. Everything went fine, and there was no one in the hut already, and no one hurt themselves too badly tearing down the slopes on toboggans and skis. Not many of us had skied before so that was amusing to see! I had a go and did begin to get it, and it was so much fun! My second time ever in real snow! And we even got snowed on!

Here's Lupton Hut with a rainbow behind her. It was an hour and half walk from the car park. She was a snug little cabin and even had carpet on the floor! In fact, it was warmer than our house at home!

We called ourselves the Snow PatrolL

And that's me with my inside-out bag which everyone claimed had more stuff attached to the outside than it had on the inside! But that was on the homeward journey.

The mountain is a very touristy area which meant the paths were pretty flash!

I just managed to find a couple of hours to sketch the hut, I wish I had had more time, but we were always doing something from early in the morning till dark.

The real snow was about an hours walk up from the hut. One day we walked as far as we could up into the snow, and the rest of the days we walked back out to the van and drove up to the ski fields where we had fun on the toboggans and skis.

Here is a video of us on the snow on the last day. I'm the photographer so you only see my feet sliding down! :)

To the Snow!!

    When you read this I will be making my way down south to Mt Ruapehu--to the snow!

    It's something my friends and I have been talking about for awhile, and now we are going! We will be staying in one of the DOC huts on the foothills and have one pair of skis and a couple of toboggans. And are planning a good freeze! There will be eleven of us going in one big van taking a couple of days to travel down. I haven't been down south much and haven't seen much of New Zealand at all really having lived all my life in Northland, the winterless north.

   Where we are staying is apparently near to Gollum's pool which was filmed for Lord of the Rings, so we'll have to have a look at that wont we!

   I'm hoping to get a chance to draw the hut while we are there, and the neighbouring one which is just a short walk away. I also want to take the chance of doing some filming down there for my video promoting The Art of a Hut project. I'm working on setting up a pledge me account to raise money for the project. 

   I'll tell you all about the snow after I get back next Sunday. Hopefully we have lots of snow and beautiful weather and no earthquakes or volcanoes. After all it is an active volcano and one of the most dangerous places to be at the moment, according to my brother. Imagine us sliding down the while slopes of a beautiful mountain under sunny skies -- just like this: