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Published: September 11th 2007
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Having spent a lot of the day shopping, emailing and blogging we took the road west out of town toward the Treble Cone ski field, stopping at Diamond Lake car park just before dark.
We woke up on mid-winter’s day (21st June) to our first morning of ice on the inside of the van windows and with the water canister in our ‘kitchen’ frozen! The nights were definitely getting colder, but we were still warm enough IN bed, it was just the getting out that caused problems and led to a few ‘discussions’ about who was going to put the kettle on and make the porridge! See, I told you that winter was a great time to visit NZ!! Anyway, we got ourselves warmed up with an hour or so walk to and around the very frozen Diamond Lake and then on up to a viewpoint looking out over Lake Wanaka.
Having been told about a great walk up to the Rob Roy Glacier we continued along the Treble Cone road, past the entrance to the ski-field and started down the dead-end 4x4 track that leads deep into Mount Aspiring National Park. All was going well and although the
road surface was a bit loose, it was easily passable in our trusty camper. About 20km later, half way to our destination of the end of the road and the trailhead, it started to snow. This wasn’t British snow either, it was flakes the size of golf balls (OK maybe I exaggerate a little), but it was coming down big and thick and fast. Within 20 minutes the road was covered and it was becoming difficult to see where it stopped and the ditch/fields started. We continued for a short while but quickly decided that taking a 2WD camper down a 4x4 road in the snow was pushing it a bit too far, especially as we didn’t know how good the snow chains were yet.
As we headed back to Wanaka, we decided snow chains were becoming a necessity and after a monumental 20 minute battle I had successfully covered myself in mud, snow and fitted the chains to the wrong wheels..... Well, I just assumed that most Japanese cars were front wheel drive these days... and in my defence it did help with the steering, just not so much with the traction! The second attempt at chain fitting
was a little quicker and on the correct set of wheels and as we returned to town with people sliding around us and unable to get up hills, we were very glad that we had accepted the offer of free chains from Ezy a few weeks earlier.
Back at Wanaka lake front we witnessed a whole bunch of crazy locals running into the water as part of the usual insane mid-winter style rituals that humans insist on. We decided not to join them, but whilst wondering how bad the weather was going to get and what we should do next, we passed the time making a politically-correct, equal¬-opportunities ‘snowlady’. It was the best snow ever for shaping and carving, with our efforts drawing the attention of many passers-by who took photographs and congratulated us on the fine figure of women we had created. Now absolutely soaking wet, we found ourselves back in the same campsite as before, ready for a hot shower and the comfort of the van’s fan heater. We parked alongside a couple of other Ezy vans, meeting up with their UK occupants and forming the impromptu ‘Ezycrew’. With rumours of road closures in every direction, it
was looking like we might be spending a while in Wanaka, so we set about getting to know the other members of the crew better at the pub!
The morning after things didn’t look too bad, apart from having bad hangovers that was. There was a bit of sunshine and the snow didn’t really seem that deep. However, Wanaka town very rarely gets snow (it was 5 years since they had seen it) and all the roads for 100km’s in every direction were closed. This seemed quite believable as even driving back from our aborted Rob Roy trip the day before we had seen there was a lot more snow out of town. As we listened to weather reports and asked more people, it seemed that there was a vague possibility that the lower road to Queenstown that took the long way round via Cromwell might be cleared enough by lunchtime to get through. Although it was 100km’s rather than 50km’s.
We decided to make a break for it and try to get to Queenstown in time for the start of the festival that evening. We left feeling rather nervous, convinced by the radio reports and local advice
that we were risking life and limb leaving town, particularly as more snow was expected. Well, it was pretty slippy getting out of town, but after 30k’s or so we were getting down to the tarmac and chains seemed overkill. Not wanting to take them on and off too many times, we stuck with them for a while longer, but finally decided to ditch them after about 50k’s. Not long after that we came across a roadblock just passed Cromwell, where the authorities had stopped all traffic from continuing, whilst the road was cleared. After waiting for an hour or so, they were letting people through, but only with chains. Some of this pass/gorge section was pretty icy and dotted with well over 100 abandoned cars, but far from impassable. All in all it seemed that people were over-reacting to the conditions and were not at all prepared - strange for an area that has several ski-fields and always sees snow every year!!
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