Hot Pools

On Saturday, July 26th I took off on a two to three hour road trip to Sylvia Flats Hot Pools in Lewis Pass. Unfortunately, I got such a late start that I only made it to a rest stop 50km past Hanmer. The next day I got going early and was sitting in hot pools by about 9:30am.

After a good three hour soak in the second-best hot pool I'd ever been in (followed closely by a hot river in Rotarua), I set up camp and made a fire. While I was cooking up my dinner I got a visitor, an old guy named Bill. Bill comes to the pools every night to soak and then jumps in the ice cold river when he's done! I made a point to try that the next day.

On Tuesday the 29th I rode back to Christchurch and set up camp at a place outside of town called Chamberlains Ford.

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Chrch Mountain Biking

On Thursday, July 10th I returned to Christchurch and found that Arthur was on holiday. So we decided to go mountain biking at Bottle Lake.

The next day we went riding down the Waimakariri River and into Kaiapoi.

On the 12th Arthur took me to Glentui/Mt Richardson for the Waterfall Walk.

Finally, the next day we went up to Sign of the Kiwi for some more technical tracks.

Two days later I found some different accommodation with some members of the ski club: Jenny, Daniel, Otis and Baxter. I spent three days there then another three days at club member Ana's and another five days at Henry's.

On July 25th, after over two weeks of staying with friends and clubbies I finally got my bike off the mountain.

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Cass Lagoon

On Saturday, July 5th one of our ski patrol had an accident and had to be flown out. Two days later we were told to leave the mountain until conditions improved. So, we went on a tramp on the Cass-Lagoon Track.

The first day we hiked all day till we arrived at Hamilton Hut where some sneaky Keas got a hold of my shoes and took off... fortunately, I found one right away and the other one later down by the river.

The next day we hiked to the next hut which was so small that I had to set up camp outside. Apparently, while I was sound asleep cozy in my tent the others were squished together like a bunch of sardines and yet surprisingly still struggling to stay warm.

The next day we hiked out and headed back to the mountain. On the way we caught quite a show put on by some routy Keas on the ridge.

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Back to the Cheese

On Friday, June 20th I moved on from Dunners to Christchurch - about a seven hour ride! After essentially spending the whole day in a wind tunnel I finally arrived at the Marshs for the night. The next day I had a perfect ride up to the mountain... well, aside from the death winds tossin' me about all over the road!

The next day we got started with training and over the next couple weeks we didn't do much else... without snow we were bored senseless. I managed to sign up for a TESL course but, with the long registration period, I was still in the same boat as everyone else - useless.

Finally, on Wednesday the 2nd of July we caught a break. Just for the day we were given a ride up to the top of Cockayne on back of the Caterpillar for one perfect run of preseason skiing.

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