Mud, lots of mud.

Daylight savings time has officially occurred in New Zealand, which means that the weather has turned for the better.  The winter rains are now turning to sunshine and beach weather.  The better weather calls for hikes and long walks on the beach.  On Saturday we figured that we would take advantage of the better weather and head to the Waitakere range.

There’s a beach just south of Piha called KareKare that has several nice hikes and some amazing beach areas.  We decided to hike the Mt Zion Hill Track and thought it would be a really nice, scenic hike.  In retrospect, I probably should have researched it a little more.  Four and a half hours and 16k later, we made it back to the car with several extra kilograms of mud clinging to our boots.

The hike was a decent challenge as it takes off straight up the cliff line, stopping for a waterfall along the way, and then a little trouble ensued.  Since it’s only spring here and it has been raining quite a bit, half of the hike was covered in mud, which was not an easy task with James on my back.  Maggie didn't get any pictures of the mud because we needed all hands free to grab any branches available along the trail to keep us from sliding down the path.  We finally got past the mud, through wetlands via submerged boardwalk,  and to the beach, which had some beautiful black sand dunes that led out to the ocean.

Lance carved this for me when he hiked this a couple weeks ago so I could find it when we did it together.

James had a fantastic time running around the sand dunes and throwing sand on both Maggie and me.  He is truly in his element rolling around in the sand.  He had a really great day and enjoyed spending time on a beautiful NZ Beach overlooking the Tasman Sea.

Skiing the South Island

Hey Everyone,

Lance here.  We've been relatively quiet for awhile due to the rainy NZ winter and my busiest time of the year at work.  I was able to get a day off after some 'fun times' down in Hamilton and used it to fly down to the South Island with my buddy Kevin to take in some ski slopes.

We flew into Queenstown to take in the Remarkables the first day.  If you haven't flown into Queenstown, make sure you have a window seat because the views of Lake Wakatipu are spectacular.

While the conditions weren't great, it was still fun to get out onto the slopes and get a few nice turns in with a couple of beautiful views.

We stayed in Queenstown for the night and took in some great pizza at Fat Badgers Pizza.  Luckily I lapped the slopes quite hard during the day to take in all that pizza.  Getting out of order, but on the subject of good eating, we took in Fergburger the second night (Fergburger is well renowned all over NZ and on a daily basis has lines around the block to get in and get your order through).

Day 2

Rumor around the island is that the best skiing in New Zealand is at Treble Cone, which is right outside of Lake Wanaka.  After hearing this, skiing at Treble Cone was definitely on my bucket list while we were over here.  The drive from Queenstown to Wanaka is absolutely gorgeous and covers the highest paved road in all of New Zealand (they even have a plaque to show it).

We got into Wanaka early and had a little time to take in some morning coffee and a view of the lake.

We enjoyed the day at Treble Cone despite the cloud coverage the majority of the day.  I can only imagine how amazing the views would be on a blue sky day.  Treble Cone was definitely worth the flight and drive, I'm just hoping that we get another shot to get back down there again next winter before we head back.  While the snow isn't as great as the powder we get back in Colorado, the views and the experience is worth it.  Being able to say that I've skied the southern hemisphere is something great to add to the resume.