Hiking around Wanaka

As the snow still did not find the way to New Zealand and also as Wanaka is quite dead at the moment (which protects me from partying hangovers and lazyness), I had a chance to do few shorter hikes in the surrounding mountains. Three out of five days I've spent here was weather suitable for hiking (including one day being absolutely fabulous) and I managed to see following places:

1) Mount Iron - 548m high hill which is practically part of the town. 

Wanaka town and lake from Mt Iron

2) Rocky Mountain - again smaller, i think around 800m high (but this time very tricky - because of the rain turning the trail into river) hill with nice views on the other side of the lake

This unfortunately isn't a forest stream, but part of the trail... 

View from Rocky Mountain towards Wanaka

3) Rob Roy glacier - beautiful hike through the forest to the base of the glacier. 

Start of the trail - swing-bridge to 'nowhere'

The trail lead through this kind of rainforest...

...and ended up at the base of the Rob Roy glacier.         

The drive back to Wanaka was not bad as well..

4) Roys peak - 1578m high peak close to Wanaka with beautiful 360 views

Direction North. Wanaka lake and town and somewhere behind the last visible mountains is Mt Dobson.

Direction West towards Mt Aspiring (2nd highest NZ mountain), which is unfortunately hidden in the clouds. The small bumpy hill in the middle is Rocky Mountain (see 3)).

Direction South - towards Queenstown.

BONUS: sunset on lake Wanaka

Shot from the town centre lakefront

Maori festival with bonfires and free hangi (traditional Maori food)

So much from Wanaka. I'm leaving tomorrow and heading North back to Fairlie and Mt Dobson, where I should start the ski season on Tuesday with the first training day.

Pre-winter holiday travels

Before we get some decent snow down here so I can start my winter job, I managed to travel a bit and see few of the last places I haven't been to. Although the vast majority of the time I was stuck back in Queenstown partying and doing nothing (I hoped that this time I will keep myself busy by going skiing a lot, but there was one thing missing for the accomplishment of this goal: SNOW). I went skiing twice though and also traveled some beautiful places:

First time on skis in NZ. We decided to hike up Coronet peak skifield with few friends (the only ski area that was open), because paying $100 for skiing on melting artificial snow simply is too much. Despite the fact that the snow conditions sucked, I was incredibly happy to stand on the skis again. (Foto by Dudi)

 Coronet peak summit. Beautiful view over surrounding mountains, unfortunately not much snow in sight :/

I attended an All Blacks vs. England match! Really unforgettable to see live the players do the haka before the match.. And the whole road-trip to Dunedin was legendary as well :)

Milford Sound - breathtaking cruise through the fiord. Stunning views on the surrounding mountains, waterfalls, rocks with seals... Magic. 

Few guys took the close look on one of the Milford Sound's waterfall as an opportunity to take a cold shower.

Mirror lake. 

Lake Wakatipu on the way from Queenstown to Glenorchy.

Glenorchy - small village at the end of lake Wakatipu. Gateway to several mountain hikes - I visited on rainy day and was not too excited to go hiking in those conditions.

At least I have found a friend in Glenorchy -  local dog kept bringing me the stick for throwing :) 

Rainbow gate to the mountains

Arrowtown - quiet charming ex-miners town just outside busy Queenstown

Wanaka - Queenstown's little sister. Much smaller and quieter lakeside town with good skiing options just outside the town (no snow here as well though).

Lake Wanaka on sunset

Lake Wanaka from Rocky mountain that I hiked after heavy rain - not a good idea - the trail was sometimes looking like a river and I was off my feet more than on them.. 

As I'm writing this post, I received a call from my boss that we are starting the pre-season training next Tuesday, which means I have less than 1 week of my pre-winter holiday left... It might sound weird, but I'm really looking forward to start working :)

South, south, south...

As everything is ready for the ski season at Mt Dobson, there is no more work for me until the actual start of skiing.. And for that I need to wait for some snowing to happen.. So meanwhile I took off from Fairlie to take a break from my loneliness and head over back to the buzzy Queenstown. I did take a bit  longer road around the South to see some places I haven't seen yet:

Oamaru - nice little town with one particularly nice part - old industrial part of the port recreated to galleries and cafes.

Steampunk HQ - bizarre gallery full of skulls

 Moeraki boulders - strange perfectly shaped boulders at one beach - the creation process was described similarly to the creation of pearls.

Dunedin - 2nd largest city on South Island. On picture - main square. No idea who Robert Burns was, but the seagulls don't seem to like him :)

Dunedin railway station 

Dunedin railway station again - totally empty. Railway transport is not really big in NZ. Actually there are only 2 railways here. And in comparison with bus transport, the trains are unbelievably expensive.

At Baldwin street - world's steepest street

No exit, no turning. How the fuck am I supposed to get out of there then??

Above Dunedin

I sold my surfboard in Dunedin. Ironically next day after that I went to the surf beach with some surfing going on... But even if I had the board I would definitely not get in - the water is freezing cold! 

Nugget point in the Catlins - beautiful coastal - forest - farm area in the south 

Fishermen coming back home on sunset in the Catlins.

Sunrise in Catlins #1

Sunrise in Catlins #2

Little loud bird in the bay

Bluff - South of the South. The point where the road ends... That means I have done it all. From Cape Reinga to Bluff. 1400 kms. Still some places to see and some things to experience left though..

So now I'm back to Queenstown for few days/weeks?? God knows. Basically I'm just waiting for my boss to call me to come back after there is enough snow to open the ski season at Mt Dobson. Until then I will mainly be here and enjoy the fact that there are some people around me here :)) I might as well go skiing for the first time here as I already bought the ski equipment :) 

Day-off under Aoraki/Mt Cook

On the days when the weather is rough up on Mt. Dobson, I either work down in Peter's workshop, or if there is not much to do there, I simply get a day-off. :) This happened two times last and this week and I was lucky that I had some friends (Alan and Matthieu) visiting me at that time, so we could plan something (if I was alone, I doubt that I would even get out of the bed during the whole day ;)). So, Monday I got a day-off, we checked what possibilities there are and miraculously the weather forecast for Mt. Cook national park was good (this doesn't mean too much though as forecasting the weather in NZ mountains might be one of the hardest jobs ever). But anyways, we gave it a go and what seemed unbelievable to me got true. I finally saw the highest NZ peak - Aoraki/Mt. Cook (after driving by for the 6th or 7th time..). Moreover, as the weather was really nice, we did not stay only watching, but also did 2 small treks in the surrounding valleys:

Aoraki/Mt Cook - the summit still covered in clouds, but this is probably as good as it gets (at least for me..) When leaving the valley, we even saw the peak without any clouds for few seconds, but it got covered immediately again..

 Hooker valley - with this name, of course we needed to go and see what is waiting for us there ;)

Alan and Mat passing one of the swing bridges in Hooker valley

Hooker valley expedition at the end of the trek (me, Matthieu, Alan). No hookers found :( 

Hooker lake with beautiful icebergs

Tasman valley

With Alan in front of the melting Tasman glacier 

After this day I was really happy that my visit to Mt Cook national park finally worked out well. Now I'm back in work, finishing the preparations for the winter season at Mt Dobson. Mat stayed with me for 2 more days to help us out with putting the chairs on the chairlift and probably will work with me at Mt Dobson during the winter season as well :) I will probably stay here one more week and then head off south to travel some new places and pick up skis that I bought before the winter season starts...

Mt Dobson ski area - dreamjob in godforgotten land

My wish and goal for the coming winter in NZ was to find a job in the ski resort in order to get to ski a bit finally (as I missed the winter season in Europe I'm really excited to go skiing again). So while Working in Christchurch I've sent applications to practically all ski resorts in NZ (might sound crazy, but in fact there is only around 12 of them :)). The first (and it tourned out that the only - my CV fakeing skills are probably still not good enough ;)) who replied was Peter from Mt Dobson ski area. After an interview he offered me a job as a lift operator for the winter season and also work on pre-seasonal preparations which I accepted as well. So currently I'm here with approx half of the work done and I must say that I really enjoy it and I found my own piece of peaceful paradise here. Most of the time I work only with Peter (now 71 year old man who once had a dream to run his own skifield and now does it for over 30 years already) on all kind of jobs around the skifield. The work is quite physical and hard, but being surrounded by such a beautiful nature just make me forget about everything.. 

This is the place. Look from the carpark (btw. highest carpark in southern hemisphere) on the slopes. The skifield is small in comparison to the european standards - There are only 3 lifts here - 1 chairlift, tbar lift and platter lift. Neveretheless the mountain looks really nice and I can't wait to make my first lines in the fresh powder here :)

View from the carpark down to the base of the chairlift. These pictures are maybe 2 weeks old, now the snow is pretty much all melted so it doesnt look that nice anymore, but at least it is more convenient for the work..

The way up to the skifield is incredible. It is 15 km ride on gravel road through the hills full of sheep cows and horses running away in front of your car. Btw. Before Peter and co. could start his skifield dream, he must had started from the bottom - by building the road. It took them 3 years (1976-1979) to get the road done.

As I wrote above, I get to do all kind of jobs around the skifield. Here hanging the t-bar hangers...

Fixing the receivers and transmitters on the top of the mountain to protect them from getting blown away...

Fixing the groomer and getting it up to the mountain..

Fixing the barriers... Peter has tons (I tried to count it and I got to number 25, but there are probably some more that I'm not aware of) of vehicles and machines (from quads, vans, trucks to graders, buldozers and groomers) on the skifield. So sometimes I have a little fun in the work to ride some of them.

On the days when the weather is too rough on the mountain I work in Peter's workshop on e.g. building snowgates out of old skis (it didnt feel right cutting the skis with a saw :/)

So, that's pretty much it from my current life. Apart from work it is really quiet as the town where I stay (Fairlie) is a town full of farmers, no backpackers or travellers whatsoever.. But I must say that I really enjoy the peaceful and quiet life here. 

Oh yes, and I work evenings 2 hours in a holidaypark in the office in exchange for free accommodation. So no more cold nights in the car :)