I have just arrived home from what is probably my favourite place on the whole planet. Okay so I haven't actually been to that many places on the planet, but what the heck!
It started with one of those throwaway lines: "I'd like to take the kids to go find some snow". They'd never been in snow, you see. They'd briefly touched it, the couple of times the stuff has fallen from the sky in Johnsonville, but it never stuck around long enough to collect on the ground. Now, normally, a line like that would lead precisely nowhere. We are not great at following through on ideas and actually doing stuff. Which is part of why this one did happen. Ross was asked if he was planning to take any annual leave ... "Well actually ..." and the next thing you know our accommodation is booked and we're nervously watching weather reports about heavy snowfalls and closed roads in the central North Island!
Yesterday morning we were on our way, and after about 4 hours of "Where are we now?" we stopped in Waiouru to play in the snow
Mt Ruapehu (our destination)
Mt Tongariro & Mt Ngaruahoe (just cos it's so darn pretty!)
Pretty chilly though ... Ross decided against skinny-dipping ...
We just pootled around the mountain, scouting out the neighbourhood, then crashed in our wee cabin at the holiday park for the night.
It started with one of those throwaway lines: "I'd like to take the kids to go find some snow". They'd never been in snow, you see. They'd briefly touched it, the couple of times the stuff has fallen from the sky in Johnsonville, but it never stuck around long enough to collect on the ground. Now, normally, a line like that would lead precisely nowhere. We are not great at following through on ideas and actually doing stuff. Which is part of why this one did happen. Ross was asked if he was planning to take any annual leave ... "Well actually ..." and the next thing you know our accommodation is booked and we're nervously watching weather reports about heavy snowfalls and closed roads in the central North Island!
Yesterday morning we were on our way, and after about 4 hours of "Where are we now?" we stopped in Waiouru to play in the snow
Should I feel nervous?!
Then carried on to Whakapapa, where we were told that we couldn't have timed it better - it was the first glorious day they'd had after two weeks of crap. And glorious it most certainly was!
Mt Ruapehu (our destination)
Mt Tongariro & Mt Ngaruahoe (just cos it's so darn pretty!)Pretty chilly though ... Ross decided against skinny-dipping ...
We just pootled around the mountain, scouting out the neighbourhood, then crashed in our wee cabin at the holiday park for the night.
This morning we were off up the mountain to hit the slopes - hired toboggans and warm stuff to wear then had a couple of hours of sliding, stumbling, whinging and general snowy mayhem ... when not fighting for breath!
John with a rather dangerous-looking icicle ... it turned into morning tea!
Time for one last wander along a little track ...
Then snoozles in the car on the way home (don't ask me what everyone else did, I was the one that fell asleep!). The kids' favourite part of the trip was the snow-fight at Waiouru, mine was the little walks, Ross's was basically the whole thing! :)
No TV, no computer (although we could have if we'd wanted to) and a cellphone that was basically ignored apart from one very happy little Facebook/Twitter update ... heaven! :)
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1 comments:
very cool. these will be wonderful family memories.
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