Adventures of the Superfly: Snowboarding @ Mt. Ruapehu: Episode 1 & 2

15 October 2006

White, pure, feathersoft, bone-breaking hard, blinding, cold, wet, winter… All these nouns would do well do describe snow. A month ago 2 friends and I hit the snow-clad slopes of mt Ruapehu for the fist time and added “andrenalised, fun, laughter, joy and pain” to the list of nouns describing snow!

Our little troop of brave men included 3 South African Expats. Marchant “Marc” Jooste - previously of Pretoria, Pieter du Plessis – previously of Richards Bay, and yours truly - Superfly “boskind” of Pretoria. Marchant and his entire family have been residents of Aotearoa “Land of the long white cloud” for seven years. He’s employed at the infamous WETA-studios (King Kong, Lord of the Rings ring a bell?) and performs his wizardry as an animator. Pieter and I will be sharing a house soon :o)

So we organised half a day of from work hit the road at 13:00. The surrounding scenery changed so many times over the next 4 hours that it felt like it was over in an instant. The only common denominators were green fields covering rolling hills and basking under the sun which seemed suspended from a surreal blue sky. Oh yes, don’t forget the sheep, they’re everywhere! Grazing and sleeping on ridiculous gradients (I would not be able to climb up some of the places they were sleeping) like they were some cross-bred Merino-mountain-goat thing. To be quite honest, they’re actually quite cute….

WHAT!!!??? Did I just say that??? Nooooooooooooooo!!!! Hehehe You know I was just kidding right? RIGHT!?

Right, back on point… A few scenic tourist attractions on the main highway between Wellington and National Park Village are:

-The picturesque Hutt Valley

-Plimmerton – The home of wave sailing (just so you know, windsurfing rules)

-The awe inspiring Kapiti coast and Kapiti Island

-The Car museum that houses Adolf Hitlers’ car.

-The town of Bulls … hehe no really it’s called bulls. And the police officers are const-a-bulls… for real!

The closer you get to mt Ruapehu the more rugged the terrain becomes and ultra green pastures with natural patches of daffodils give way to rocks, shrubs and brownish things. Mt Ruapehu (Maori for "exploding pit") and it’s little brother – mt. Ngauruhoe (actually a secondary vent of mt Tongariro) are active volcanoes and as such have a massive influence on the surrounding area. By the way, mt Ngauruhoe was mt Doom in the “Lord of the Rings” film. Awesome…

We reached the mountains just as the sun bid us farewell and bathed the white slopes in fiery hues. Freezing yet beautiful! We booked into our lodge ($25 a night for BBH members – great!) and went to hire our gear. “Base Camp”, a very authentic pizzaria / pub in National Park Village provided some entertainment and grub before we retired for the evening. Dawn seemed to play hide and seek with pillowland. Daybreak finally came and we set off for the mountain!

Marc took us down to “Happy Valley”, the beginners area and gave us a few pointers. Within 20 minutes we were panting like dogs in summer and my ass reminded me it was not made to fall on! (Actually it continued reminding me of this for a few days to come!)

Pieter and I were first timers so we checked in for boarding-school at 9:30 (no not the one with bad food, the one with snowboards hehe) There were plenty of us that pitched for the first lesson so the group got split into 2 and off we went. Imagine my surprise as our snowboarding instructor, a very hip dude from Argentina, asked “who of you have done windsurfing before?” HA! I could not believe my luck! I promptly said “yea, I’ve done a bit of sailing” to which he coldly replied: “Snowboarding isn’t anything like that!” hehehe hook line and sinker! The lesson lasted 2 hours by the end of which our coach told me I’ve got the basics down well enough to go explore the lower mountain. Woohooo! After gleaning a few last words of wisdom from the dude we went to have some lunch after which we hit the “rock-garden trail on the lower mountain. I have to tell you it was freaking awesome. By 4pm I’ve had many really cool runs, managed to take a few skiers out (hehehe) and survived 3 hours of cramping legs. I thought that my legs could act up tomorrow, now was time for boarding, not cramping up like some freaking wiener. Anyway, we got loads of boarding done!

Some really heavy weather blew in over Saturday evening and consequently shut the snowfields on Sunday. We watched the last SA – NZ tri nations test and got to bed at 3:30 am… To tell you all the truth, I would not have made it up the mountain that Sunday anyway! I was knackered! We headed home and started planning the next trip…

Check the photo’s!

Not exactly an African sunset but pretty none the less. Anyone care to join me for a glass of Port???

Is this a full moon or what?!

Mt Doom doesn't look so threatening when cloaked in pure white now does it?

I'm enjoying this, could you tell??? In the background is Peter. These chairlifts were sooo much fun. This was taken in "HappyValley" aka - Beginners paradise, where many a man is broken, pride lost and fun gained.

And we played in the snow too... Jealous yet? hehe

Right – fast forward 4 weeks to 9 October…

I sold the idea of going snowboarding to half the North Island in the last few weeks :o) and in the end a small crowd got ready for the exodus from Wellington to mt Ruapehu at 3pm Friday afternoon… Then the rapture came and only a few of us were left here, so we went snow-boarding anyway. Hehe. 4 of our friends cancelled due to other commitments (nothing as dramatic as the rapture though…) so in the end, Marchant and I were joined by only one other couple, however the 2 of them are galaxies of fun so we had a blast! We were joined by Marc and Karen Honeychurch-originally from the UK. They are truly some of the wittiest, fun people I know! We arrived at National Park by 8pm and were welcomed by cloudless skies and a full moon lit up the mountains beautifully. So far so good.

Marchant joined us for a quick beer and then headed to another lodge where his family was staying for the weekend. His family currently lives in Auckland and as mt Ruapehu is halfway between Auckand and Wellington it makes for a good family weekend.

Morning came and the snow report was excellent, 20mm of fresh snow on the upper mountain and all lifts were open. Springtime has the best weather conditions for snow sports but dwindling amounts of snow proves summer is coming.

Saturday was just amazing. We boarded the entire length of trails on the upper, lower and western slopes. All I can really add to that is my BUTT was much happier this time around! The view from the upper and western slopes is just breathtaking. You can actually see mt Taranaki (mt Edgemond) on the far western coast! (Check a map, it really is quite remarkable!)

Saturday evening we had dinner with Marchant’s family. I have to tell you, absolutely nothing comes close to South African hospitality. We welcome from the first moment and had a roaring time. Great company, lovely food and good wine… what more could you possibly want! Thanks a mil to the Jooste family, you guys are great!

Sunday morning arrives, lo and behold, weather is BAD! Nooooo, the weather-man said it was going to be as sunny and perfect as Saturday, what the heck is going on!!!??? We headed up the mountain anyway. Only Happy Valley’s lifts were open so we had a play on the ice… That’s right… ICE. No fresh snow means that the slope is VERY icy until ski’s, snowboards and some morning sun softens it up… Miraculously the wind subsided and the lower mountain’s lifts were opened. Yea baby! We were up in a flash and got a many good runs in before we had to leave. What a rush, what an awesome weekend

I was amazed at how many childred were blasting around the slopes, some as young as 4 years old. One mum on a snowboard was teaching her daughter in tiny ski’s while the kid was in a brace with a leash… I laughed so much at seeing this kid-on-a-leash duo that I almost fell of a cliff… hehe

Anyhouw… Here are the photo’s for this trip… See if you can spot mt. Taranaki in the distance!

This was taken from the upper mountain... what a view!