Hitting the slopes...at last

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Just a quick blog as we're busy packing for our trip home but I must report on our cracking weekend skiing at Turoa on Mount Ruapehu, one of New Zealand's most active volcanoes. It forms part of Tongariro National Park and is pretty much in the middle of the North island.

The car behaved well on the return journey and the weather behaved even better. So well that our neglect to bring any sunscreen had quiet an impact on my face. I'm peeling already and with my new huge goggles, I have a resemblance to a brown and pink panda. It was unbelievable how quickly my skin colour changed - even with factor 30 on the Sunday, I still took colour - the sun really is so strong here especially when its reflected off snow at altitude.

Jo-Ann's skiing was very steady and I could see her confidence was growing with every trip down the mountain. She still won the Driving Miss Daisy award for the slowest traverse, though whereas I'm a bit more gun-ho and so feel on several occasions somewhat spectacularly.

My skiing got much better as well after a shaky start - the lessons we'd had earlier this year started to come back to me and my confidence returned. I think we can both say that we're now Intermediate which beats beginner anytime!

Jo-Ann's highlight was the incident when she decided to take out a Japanese lady in a crunching head-on collision. I reminded her that the war ended 60 years ago and we were never actually at war with Japan, that was the Americans and can't she just let bygones be bygones, we're all friends now. etc., etc.

Back to packing but before I go here's our contact details for when we're home:

Angus - mob [phone], [e-mail]
Jo-Ann - mob [phone], [e-mail]

We'll be pretty busy catching up with family and friends but please call or e-mail and we'll see if we can fit you in our hectic schedules!!

Cheers for now.

Angus & Jo-Ann

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Photos

Mountain man
Posing at the roadside with Mount Ruapehu in the background

Shrinktastic
The outside loo was not for the faint-hearted

The panda...
..or is it The Fly?!

Awwww...
...leftover hotdogs

Mr Kamikaze comes flying in
The weather closed in a for a few minutes as this was taken

Speaking of kamikaze
Jo-Ann re-enacts the Battle of Okinawa - oh, the humanity