National Park

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We get up early so we can rent skis and get to the mountain early for the best conditions. Lifts here open at 8:00 am and close at 3:30 pm. The shop where we rent our skis is owned by the same family as the café last night. It is overcast but the forecast calls for clearing weather. We get to the base and eat some breakfast in hopes that the sun will come out and burn off the clouds. One side of the mountain is closed due to poor visibility and it really looks like it should all be closed but their season is until the end of October, so we think they just open it because they wouldn’t know what to do with the people that have driven four hours from Auckland or Wellington.
There are two double chair lifts that usually service the base area but today we go up on the only double chair that is operating. Part of the way up we change to a triple chair. From there you have to take one of three T-bars (my favorite!) to the top of the mountain. The T-bars are running but as we go up the triple chair the visibility gets worse and worse. As we exit we can’t even see the T-bars, so we decide to ski down some. The snow is total slush, we can barely see each other and we have no idea where we are going. Most of the snow has melted and there are huge lava rocks all over the place. We pick our way down to the area where you get on the triple chair and I decide it is time for me to take a break at the lodge. There are lodges everywhere, most built by private ski clubs, so when I figure out which on is the public lodge I have to side step up a hill. Michael decides he is going up again and I wish him well. As I am side stepping up the hill it starts to rain on me. Are we having fun yet?
Michael comes into the lodge after just one run up and the fog is getting heavier and heavier. We sit for a minute and decide that we have had enough of NZ skiing for today. Here they will refund the difference between a half day and full day lift pass if you turn in your pass before 12:30 pm, so that seems the thing to do. There is really only one way down and everyone is on that run. It is the only way we know how to get down since we can’t see three feet in front of us. So much for our big ski day!
We go back to our room to regroup and decide what to do tomorrow and around 4:00 pm the sun starts shining but there are still a lot of clouds. Oh, what does tomorrow hold for us?
We are getting bored with the little village of National Park and decide to stay in for the night. Michael runs down to the bottle store, which is also part of a local bar and brings back a bottle of wine since we have already finished our stash. We sit on the bed, drink wine, eat crackers and sausage that we bought for our hikes and play gin rummy. We also decide that we are tired of waiting for the weather to clear and will take the bus to Wellington tomorrow.

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