More skiing!

Sunday 19th July: Cold and bright. We were up early this morning, in fact up before the sun. Although the sun doesn’t peep over the mountain here until nearly 9 o’clock this time of the year! We were ready to leave the campsite by 9 and on the ski runs, shredding some snow, before 10am. We started on the learner slopes as usual, and after 10 minutes Edward asked me if I’d like to go to the tea bar. I thought this a marvellous time to have a brew but of course he was referring to the T-bar on the faster slopes. We all had a good day skiing and there were fewer people there today so the queues were never longer than 2 or 3 minutes at worst, usually you just skied down, turned and picked up the next lift as it went past. Lunchtime we had hot dogs. Now in NZ a hot dog is something completely different from what we are used to. Here it is some yucky pre-cooked sausage on a lolly stick, covered in batter and deep fried. Of course we had the ole blighty version of a warm Frankfurter sausage in a long roll with or without lashings of ketchup and mustard. After lunch we skied again until 4 o’clock, with no wind and clear blue skies. Steve was skiing like a god (his words, not mine) on the super-doper skis he bought at the end of last year; Edward was enjoying jumps on the terrain park; Peter was enjoying rushing down anywhere and everywhere, on and off piste; Jonathan has been slower to get back into the groove this year but by the end of today was hurtling down the steeper slopes; and I continued to resist the pull of gravity whilst trying to maintain some air of elegance. I must admit I am much more relaxed this year and am amazed that my leg muscles don’t ache at all after 2 days whereas last year they were painful after the first hour each time we went.
We left the skifield a little after 4pm and collected some more pine cones on the way back to the campsite. Steve and I showered and then we ate out for dinner at a pizza and pasta restaurant in Tekapo called Pepes. We had a lovely meal in a relaxed setting and the boys enjoyed their first pizza-not-cooked-at-home.
The photos are of me and our lunchtime kitchen set-up; and Jonathan and Peter after skiing (or ready to rob a bank, in Peter’s case).