Day out

On very short notice I managed to cobble together P, K and myself for a day's skiing at Porters yesterday. We've now discovered that P's husband's vehicle is most satisfactory for getting into the mountains - a little fluffing about with a very stiff gear lever to get into and out of Low ratio 4WD and we were set. Though a roof rack may be needed if we want to take four people.

There was snow on the ground from Springfield, and our ambitious early start meant many cries of "I should have brought my camera" from K as we started up into the foothills with an amazing red sunrise. The light cloud burnt off and we arrived in the carpark at 8:45 to find we were about the 10th car - not bad for the first day of the school holidays!

Being the first day of the season for all three of us, we were pretty unfit & sore, especially since we were riding T-bars all day. We soon settled into a routine of 3-4 runs, then a rest break. Luckily the car was in the front row of the carpark, so we'd just sit in there & have a munch.

The snow was excellent, though off-piste was a bit chopped up and T1 got quite shiny by lunchtime. We pushed on up to T3 after lunch and had several runs on the groomed up there before heading round the back way and coming all the way down. We finished early, but we were all buggered and wanted to get down the road before the crowds started piling up behind us (first time driving on the snowy access road - we wanted to take it slowly!)

Being a Canterbury ski area, we all met people we knew, and had many catch-ups with old friends. All in all, a great day, and I'm off to the gym this afternoon to work on my leg strength so that I can cope better next time! What do they say, it's a fine line between pleasure and pain? So true!