Man, it was the first time to the snow again, after my injury last time. My shoulder is still not a 100%, but good enough that it doesn’t bother me anymore. This time, Jody and I went with friends down to the mountain.
We were pretty lucky, since it was finally the first weekend with no snow or rain. And so were the 3,567 other people going down there as well. When we arrived in Whakapapa Village at 10am (after 3.5h drive), the road up the mountain was already closed: car parks full!! Wow, I’ve never seen it fill up that quickly…
Ok, so we got changed and took the bus up the mountain. Man, we even bought snow chains in the last minute, after last times rather treacherous conditions on the road, with ice and snow. Of course, there was no snow or ice whatsoever on the road. Anyway…
It was a beautiful day, sun shining, no wind. Just perfect! Only problem: after some boarding, we started to boil!! The sun was just too strong. We had to strip off a few layers and my backpack was getting fuller and fuller. Was quite awkward on the chairlift… Thank god, that some clouds came up later in the day and we got the temperature down to a comfortable one for snowboarding. To be honest, I’ve never seen that much snow down there. One could basically board or ski anywhere; there were almost no rocks around – all of them covered a by a nice, thick layer of snow.
Was a really cool day and, thanks to some nice anti-flu pills, I could enjoy it to the max! 🙂 Hopefully, there’s gonna be less people down there next time… Fingers crossed!