Christchurch Gondolas and Mt. Hutt skiing - Jocelyn with thoughts from Trey

This past weekend was action packed!! Saturday we ventured just 15 minutes out of the city centre to the Christchurch Gondolas. High atop Mt. Cavendish, perched on the rim of an extinct volcano, the Christchurch Gondola's stunning 360 degree views take in the Canterbury Plains, the Southern Alps, Lyttleton Harbour and the Pacific Ocean. The 945 metre gondola gently lifts you almost 500 metres (1500 feet!) above sea level. There are some hiking trails, a cafe, a restaurant - plenty to do! We chose to do one of the hiking trails. It was a much shorter hike than what we had done at Taylor's Mistake. We had such fun that we wound up buying season passes for unlimited visits there as well as the Christchurch Tram. There were some people having picnics and that is definitely something we think we will do very soon. The restaurant is only open for dinner so we also think it would be cool to go up to the top in the gondolas in the dark with all the lights and have a meal with a beautiful view! We took soooo many pictures!!

Sunday we drove about 2 hours to Mt. Hutt ski field. It is only 70 miles from Christchurch but we were on the unpaved and very windy access road to the field for about 45 minutes of that. You have to drive very slow because, well, it is on the side of a mountain! I cannot see driving up that when it is snow covered - I think they require all cars to use chains in those conditions.

We arrived about 9am just as it opened. Though Trey is an experienced skier, this was my first time skiing ever!!! I was nervous, but the scary drive distracted me from my skiing nerves!! LOL We bought our passes for the day and I signed up for 2 beginner lessons - 1 in the morning and 1 in the afternoon. We got our rented gear (skis, boots, poles) and it was the PERFECT temperature - about 50 degrees F. Trey wanted my first experience skiing to be pleasant and not freezing cold. At times I was even too warm! We were smart and dressed in layers though so we could remove layers when necessary.

I was the first one to fall down in my morning lesson. Not a huge surprise. It was all adults (thankfully - I was afraid it would be me and a bunch of kids!) LOL There was another woman from the US (her parents both moved here to teach at the University of Canterbury), a woman from Brazil, a woman from Japan and a man from India who had never seen snow before!! He was probably the most excited but also easily the worst skier! :) Poor guy. i may have been the first to fall, but for the rest of the day, he practically made an art of it! Our instructor was from Japan and though his English was.....not the best.....he was very expressive and animated which made his teaching actually quite fun! After lunch he actually gave us individual pointers which was extremely helpful. I only fell a few more times after that. The times I fell was mostly when I started going faster and it spooked me. I realized this and then started talking to myself just saying, "It's going to be ok" and it worked! Mind over matter! I cannot wait to go again. You could see Christchurch and the ocean from the bunny hill I was on and even more from the heights Trey climbed to. Truly stunning.

(Trey) Skiing in New Zealand is a little different than skiing in the U.S. The differences started off right away with the drive up to the mountain. The access rode is a 10 mile long gravel road that twists and turns its way up the mountain and of course it does not have any guardrails. The next major difference is that there are no trees. This makes it very hard to figure out what run you are skiing on. The boundaries are many times just large rock formations sticking up out of the snow. Another major difference is that there are no lines. The longest I had to wait to get on a lift was 5 minutes and this was a warm sunny weekend day. I think the access road scares many of the casual skiers away. Overall the skiing was good and there was a large variety of ski runs. Another interesting thing is that they had some runs that did not end at a ski-lift so they had a bus that drives around to pick you up. Also if want to be a little more adventurous you can go heliskiing with the helicopter leaving right from the parking lot. And of course being in New Zealand they also offered bungee jumping off the edge of the parking lot as well. This is definitely a place Jocelyn and I will go to again next ski season.

We skied until 4pm when the mountain closed.

We were both so tired but had an amazing time! It is Trey's fault for finding Jocelyn yet another expensive hobby!

We will link to a site with photos in the next day or so. There are lots of photos and even a few videos!!! The videos from Mt. Hutt are primarily from driving down the mountain so it is a little bumpy but if you can take it, it is definitely worth watching!! No critiques from Jocelyn's "Hollywood" sister please!!!! :) I am no Spielberg.