It was pretty hard to believe that this weekend was the 4th of July! It is the dead of winter here and I'm dreaming of the sun, since I haven't seen anything but gray and fog in the past four days. But we're just unlucky here in Alex and a short drive in any direction will take you glorious sunshine-even if it is cold out!
We took a drive this weekend up to the
Waiorau Snow Farm for a little cross country skiing. The drive there was much more epic than we expected. The Snow Farm is about 13 kilometers off the main road and it just climbs and climbs and climbs! I have no idea how much elevation we gained, but we essentially drove over a mountain-I don't really know what we expected, but not that!
We had great timing, as we sometimes do, and got there on a special weekend. Locals '
Give it a go' weekend was going on and while aren't really locals (but, really, we kind of are!), we got to take part in the special. For only $20 each we got all our rental stuff (boots, skis and such) and free lessons if we wanted them. One might think that since I've never cross country skied before that I might take a free lesson-but no. Instead I have to learn the hard way-from Keith telling me what I should be doing while I'm climbing up a hill on my hands and knees (with my skis still on). The good part was that just about everyone else there was a beginner too. This meant there were lots of other people falling down all over the place-not just me!
We had a really beautiful and 'warm' day. Although I would have been a little warmer had my gloves not been wet from falling in the snow the whole time. Honestly I kind of hated cross country skiing at first, but slowly as I got a little better, it kind of grew on me. I liked that they had grooves for the skis so I could just hop in there and go-while there really is no way to stop yourself while in these grooves (learned the hard way), I think it's the best way for me to go!
I didn't last as long on the slopes/trails as Keith did-the old hand got in the way-I did get to check out the rest of what the Snow Farm had to offer. Out front there were a bunch of kids (and adults) tubing...I wanted to go tubing!! Alas I didn't, but man it looked fun!
After a whole afternoon of skiing, we were starving and there was only one place on our minds:
Fergburger in Queenstown. We had eaten there once before. It was after we did the
Routeburn and as usual,we were starving. That time it was incredibly hot out, we sat outside sweating like mad and completely devouring our burgers. I'm pretty sure I didn't work as hard for this burger, but it still tasted divine!
Amazing burger, amazing chips, cold beer-what else can you ask for? Nothing!
Now we have our usual weird week. Keith is in Roxborough, only about 30 mins away, this week. I was planning on going with him, but he's on call 2 nights, so he's just staying there when he's on call. I was planning on going out there at least one of those nights, but after Keith told me how cold the house is and how he spent the evening standing in front of the heater-I decided I would take advantage of the time and get things organized and cleaned out in our little flat in Alex-we're only here for another 2 1/2 weeks! And maybe, just maybe we'll have to get cross country skiing gear to play around with when we get home.
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