Montañas!

So, as many of you know it is WINTER her in the southern hemisphere. Winter means snow and therefore means skiing. About every other weekend I have made it up to go ride and experience a little different side of the Kiwi culture. The two towns to access skiing from are called Wanaka and Queenstown, both different in their own ways and yet both are surrounded by some of the most surreal and beautiful landscapes out there.

Queenstown (playing some disc golf):

Queenstown reminds of the all-out ritzy resort experience. No one does this better than Vancouver or Aspen, and this is exactly what this town feels like. You have your high class ski shops, your international bars, and incredibly overpriced food. But that doesn't deter me from loving this beautiful mountain town that is so squeezed up against the Southern Alps that if it were to expand it would literally be crawling up the steep mountains. During my stay in QT I ate the infamous Fergburger, skied a day at The Remarkables (which are incredibly remarkable, unfortunately I forgot my camera), and played disc golf an entire day on the peninsula in town. Here are some more shots from that day:

Our view from a 2 bedroom hotel room (which we fit 6 people in)

The peninsula we played disc golf on also contained a giant park where we witnessed many a two-wheeled-future-vehicles AKA Segway's, although I preferred watching the little kids lap the pond on their push bikes.

Lake Wakatipu:

Near the tip of the peninsula looking back at the town & and a late afternoon paraglide session:

Now Wanaka on the other hand reminds me of home, I love everything about this town. There are tons of super nice and chill locals with a good mix of international slayers who are always keen to share a jug and talk about snow stories. The feeling of this place is much more low key although any area near ski resorts in NZ are going to be highly based around the tourism unlike the club ski fields that I have yet to make it to.

The town itself is also sitting on a lake looking at beautiful mountains that seem to explode out of the surrounding landscapes. It was super overcast when I finally decided I needed to take some pictures so this is what I got, looking across lake Wanaka on the edge of town:

Beginning the drive up to Cardrona:

An interesting thing to note about skiing in New Zealand is that you first have to climb anywhere from 6,000 to 8,000 feet to even get to the base of the mountain. The road's are dirt and mud, with cliffs riding the outer edge of the road the entire switch-back filled way up.

Looking back at beautiful Wanaka:

This is probably the most mellow edge of the whole drive:

As a side note for the purpose of keeping you all updated, I do plan on slowly catching everyone up to the present. But for now I will do these larger blogs generalizing activities and adventures I've done.

ENJOY