Wheeee!!!

So dark this morning when I woke up, I thought it must be about 4am and had to look at my watch three times to convince myself I was actually reading it correctly and that it was quarter to eight!  The forecast was for rain/snow/sleet etc and we didn't have a long drive to our next destination so we had a bit of a lie in.  Weather being the funny thing it is, Mt Cook village seemed to be under a little patch of blue sky and the mountains were very pretty with the sun on the snowy peaks.  It was obvious, however, that situation wouldn't last long as there were dark, grey clouds swirling in from pretty much every direction and when we did finally check out, the motel man said it would be 'dirty' by lunchtime!

We drove south past Lake Pukaki  and it wasn't until about three quarters down the lake that the sun finally stopped shining and we hit the cloud.   We stopped at Peter's Lookout and Larry jumped out to get one more photo back towards the mountains and the blue sky.  He pretty quickly hopped back in though as it was freezing!!  By the time we were back on the main road it had started snowing on us and it was an interesting experience to drive in it as the flakes hit the aerodynamics of the car and bounced up over you instead of hitting the car the way raindrops do.  It snowed lightly all the way to Lake Tekapo where it then, suddenly, got a fair bit heavier.  We were a bit apprehensive about what we should do as we were way too early to check into our next motel so we thought we would just drive up to Tekapo Springs and check out where the snow tubing etc was.  When we got there it was still snowing but there were other people tubing etc so we figured we should stop being wimpy - it's just a bit of snow after all! - and get out and into it.

We were supposed to get an hour on the snow tube slopes but it was pretty quiet (being the first day back to school for NZ kids) so the guys ended up letting us slide for over an hour and a half. Well it was absolutely awesome fun.  The two guys manning the run were both Canadian and took great delight in sending us off from the top either backwards or (their favourite and my least favourite) in a fast spin.  The faster you went the higher up the sides you went but the fast spin just made everything end up as a white blur and I felt pretty dizzy by the end.  Certainly too dizzy to leap out of my tube and out of the way before the next person hurtled down the slope!   It started off pretty snowy and Kate elected to stay in the coffee shop in the beginning and then watched and took photos for a while. About half way through our session, the snow stopped and the clouds cleared to blue sky and Kate finally decided to have a go.  She soon realised how much fun it was and ended up having quite a few slides.  It actually got faster as the snow got icier so Kate (who took over Jenny's tube) probably ended up going faster than she had!  Apparently one of the Canadians commented to Larry that "like mother, like daughter" our screams were identical!!

Finally surrendered our tubes and went back into the cafe for lunch which was in a lovely position looking down over Lake Tekapo and the mountains beyond.  Extracted our car from the snowy carpark and headed to our motel unit which is another 'penthouse' (read two flights of stairs) apartment with a nice view of the lake from the lounge room.   After unloading and changing into some dry clothes (rather wet bottoms from the tubes!) we headed out again and did the touristy things of Lake Tekapo such as the Church of the Good Shepherd and the statue to the collie.  Nice with the sun out and blue on the lake but the wind chill factor made it a little chilly!  Back up to Tekapo Springs for Part 2 of our package being another soak in hot springs.   Three big pools, all at slightly different temperatures ranging from 37 to 40 degrees with loads of steam coming off them and great views down over the lake.  It was chilly but nowhere near as uncomfortable as Hanmer Springs maybe because there was blue sky instead of stars above us!

Back to the unit for hot showers then we walked next door to the Four Square and bought food to make burritos for dinner and a raspberry and white chocolate cheesecake for dessert.  Now watching a Harry Potter DVD whilst this is written and footy tips checked.