The Deltones

Here I am in beautiful Wanaka. And I mean Beautiful. It is absolutely stunning here. Everytime I look out over the lake and then up to the mountains I am again astounded by the natural beauty of the area. It's fantastic.

So yeah, I'm here in New Zealand and am having a great time. The trip over was uneventful and pretty boring. Unfortunately while I was in the toilet at Brisbane airport my backpack dropped off it's hook, breaking the screen on my ipod. I read a bit of a book called Marching Powder which was pretty standard sort of airport fare. Sitting next to Ria wasn't at all painful and we ate a fair bit of crap. We flew with Freedom Air which is a discount carrier, which means that we had to be self sufficient in relation to food and entertainment. We made do.

Once we arrived in Dunedin we breezed through Customs and then waited for an hour for our transfer to Wanaka. The bus finally arrived and we jumped on. It was more of a maxi taxi than a bus, and the other travellers were pretty relaxed, apart from one twelve year old that Ria wanted to beat up. Travelling though the countryside was interesting, lots of rolling hills, mountains, mud, sheep, little houses and winding roads. It was interesting. I somehow managed to find the Shuffle button on the iPod so that made the trip more bearable.

Eventually we arrived in Wanaka. It was very dark and very cold. Initially we headed to the wrong place of accomodation. We were at the Mt Aspiring Motel and we wanted the Mt Aspiring Hotel, not to be confused with the Mt Aspiring Lodge, of course. We eventually found the hotel which is about 2 kilometres out of town. We checked in then headed back out for some pizza. The pizza was crap. Once we'd returned from the pizza it was time for bed. I was happy to turn in.

The next day was time for snowboarding. I sometimes forget how much I love being up the mountains. We went up to Treble Cone, and some of the views from up there are just amazing. It seems that world is just spread out below you, with Lake Wanaka in the foreground and more mountains in the back. It didn't take me too long to get back into the swing of things. Making turns, tumbling down, hurtling down the mountain. Good times. I took one reasonable crash and I kind of hurt my upper arm. The deltoid region. In the afternoon the sun went behind a ridge line making the conditions a little icy. It was still sweet though.

I saw a bird called a Kea, or Kia, I'm not sure. Apparently they eat rubber.

After we came back down from the hill we had a shower and then headed down to Shooter's for happy hour. $5.50 jugs. It was great. Even though the jugs and glasses aren't the biggest, they are just right. It was nice to sit down in front of the fire with a cold beer. After some refreshments we went to the Speights Ale House for dinner where started off on a bucket of mussels which were terrific, and then I had some lamb shanks while Ria had some sort of chicken parcel type thing. After the beers and the riding and the food it was time for bed again.

This morning Ria and I both slept in. We were both in a bit of pain from yesterday's riding. My shoulder has been giving me a bit of grief, but it's nothing that some Nurofen can't cure. Ria's problems are more fitness related, so there's not much we can do about that.

Today has been spent walking around Wanaka, along the banks of the lake and through the streets of the town. We found a fantastic playground where if you tried hard you could make yourself sick on some spinning things.

It's been a great trip so far, we hit up Cardrona tomorrow so I'm excited about that. My board has been tuned today so it should rip the mountain to shreds tomorrow. It's going to be super dope.

Queenslander!