Everyone knows the Ruapehu Lodge is where you go for winter weekends; for snowboarding, alpine adventures and the like. Summer? What’s there in Summer? Well, that was our mission: to find out. I well know that the lodge is very comfortable for regular punters and families alike. It needs to be because snowboarding at Mt … Read more
Firstly, for those who know me, let me state that this trip actually started and was completed on Plan A! Yes, I managed to actually lead a trip that not only went someplace but was successfully completed on the intended plan and I didn’t lose any punters along the way. You can check with my … Read more
Friday night, 5.30pm, Wellington Railway Station. Perfect. We have infiltrated a party of climbers heading for “The Lodge”. This lodge will be a perfect base for our weekend operation. We hope this lodge will prove as comfortable as it sounds, even if it traffic reports indicate we might be in for a long drive. Friday … Read more
The Walk (Kate’s take on it anyway…) Despite what you read in the rest of this carefully conceived article, in which we are attempting to combine a multitude of writing styles and varying levels of the truth, this was actually a tramping trip. Well, ok, it was an alpine trip which means we carried wee … Read more
Quick out of the blocks on Friday night at 5.30pmish, Snowcraft 2 set off for our second trip to The Mountain. Due to delays from phaffing, traffic and phaffing, some had to consume their Bulls kebabs on-the-run. The sun-gods seemed to have turned their back on Whakapapa this time, choosing instead to warm the faces … Read more
When signing up in the balmy month of May, it wasn’t there yet. And even for many long weeks into June, there was hardly any snow on the ski fields at the big hill in the North, which we can often see on a clear day when tramping in our Tararua backyard. However, we still … Read more
It was an offer I could not refuse! It included free accommodation and food at the club lodge for the weekend. There would be no sleeping under a fly at a shitty road end, no grovelling through Tararua mud, and I probably would not get my boots wet. Of course there was a catch! It … Read more
Thursday Thursday 5.30pm found Amanda and I corralling punters into our respective vans at a very busy platform 9 on a warm and overcast evening. We were headed for the club lodge for the night; the other van was headed for somewhere north of Taupo. Unusually, we encountered no traffic issues; we were all the … Read more