We have had a great day up the slopes on Saturday.  Andrea, me, Watson and Andrea (Arnie) stayed at Mike and Gails on Friday night.  Early Saturday morning we started the 2 & 1/2 hour journey to Turoa, one of the ski fields on Mt Ruapehu.

Early indications were good, with hire shops on the way forecasting Turoa to be the better of the ski fields that day.  When we got closer this was proved not to be the case, with so many cars coming in the other direction all laden with ski equipment we feared the worst… a mountain closure, oh no!

We were pleasantly surprised to find out that although the top slopes were closed due to high winds, the lower part of the mountain was open.

Watson and Arnie have their own snowboards while Andrea and I hired snow blades, which are basically short skis.  They are great to just put on and go, being easier to control and do tricks and turns on compared with normal skis.  This suited us well as Andrea hadn’t ski’d for years and i’d only done it when I was twelve… I still remember how much it can hurt though.

Once we were all kitted up we took to the chair lift and scaled the mountain.  The wind was fairly strong and it was a bit chilly but what fun!  There were only a few crashes and falls with minor bruises and strains.   Andrea practiced her 360 degree turn to good effect.

Watson took some video clips of the action (see below) including me falling over (it felt fast at the time…) and Andrea’s huge air time from her mighty jump.  Once we were all tuckered-out (ahhh) we headed back to Tokaroa, via Ohakune for much needed nourishment, burgers & chips mostly.

Click the “Map View” button at the bottom to see where we were, look here for a few short videos and here for the pictures!

These pictures puts the number of images on our site to over 1000!

John and Andrea Udberg.

Feedback on the video (below) has been good, I’ve changed it slightly so it looks better. I have also added a video page and uploaded a video of me with Watsons “Spud Cannon” – a great bit of kit!

Go to Blog -> Pages -> Videos on the menu above to see it.

John and Andrea Udberg.

The smallest girl on the dance floor actually caught the bouquet, she is a rugby player though!  Well done Beatty!

We are still waiting on the official pictures and video from the wedding, they shouldn’t be long now.

This is a test to see how well video works on the site, any feedback appreciated!

John and Andrea Udberg.

Edit: The clips now have their own page, see post above