Some fresh powder and a new home

It has been a while since I last updated you, so I think I owe you.

With the start of September, and so the start of Spring, the snow was slowly starting to melt. Alex and me got very busy temping (me) and arranging the house (Alex), with in between going on little trips to Christchurch to find decent furniture for the new house. We didn't have a lot of time for skiing / snowboarding. The one day we did go up to the Remarkables, though, all the rocks and tussocks started to show through the thin layer of what was unmistakably spring snow. I have to say, after that last storm cycle and the mad powder days we'd had in August, my heart started to bleed a bit, and as I told Alex, I was "literally very, very sad."
"It's gone faster than it came," the liftee said to us at the bottom of the chair lift, and sadly we had to agree.

We kind of accepted the fact that the season was almost over. Luckily the house sucked up a lot of our time. We moved in on 9 September and are absolutely in love with it. So much better than where we lived before!
The house is situated in Fernhill, which is one of the nicer "suburbs" (if you can call it that) of Queenstown, with a lot of parks, greenery and views. Add to this a whole tangle of mountain bike and running tracks, and you have created yourself a nice living environment.

As by a miracle, though, another storm cycle hit the country these last few days, and up we went again to another decent 30 cm of snow.
The first day, a certain someone forgot to take his skis up, which made me chuckle for the rest of the day. Luckily the weather was very bad and he rented a snowboard and we did some runs together in what was a real blizzard. In the end it got so bad that our goggles froze over and we literally were pushed over by the wind and snow. No matter, no matter, the more snow there is, the better.

In the evening we were joined by Jack, a friend of Alex, and Hardesh, Jack's friend, and also Luke, someone Alex met through the ski instructor course. We had a very nice dinner evening and of course made plans to go up the next day.
Which we did, of course. Hardesh had never snowboarded before, so I stayed with her in the morning to try and get her started off, and I am pleased to say that I don't think I put her off it :). Teacher Marie-Anne on the roll!
In the afternoon though, I wanted to go for some runs myself, so Jack (who is also a snowboarder) took me up for a few runs and in the end, convinced me to go for the Homeward Bound.
Now, the Homeward Bound run is the one that was my goal for the end of the season. Alex had told me so much about it and I could see it looming on the drive up - it is a bit off piste - but I had never dared to attempt it. Luckily, Jack made me push my limits a bit, and I had so-much-fun. It wasn't scary at all, on the contrary - it was just nice and cruisy, soft on the bottom (although for some reason I have a big bruise on my bum), perfect to catch some long lost powder. You can imagine my pride when I got to the bottom of the mountain face and got to wait for the bus back up with all the other Homewarders for the first time :).

After that Alex, Jack, Luke and me ventured on one more run, which was off piste as well and required a little hike. We were all tired as it was the end of the day, but the views were unbelievable at the top of the ridge line. Worth every step! And again, I am proud to say that I caught my first powder line without stacking it :). I think I'm getting the hang of it haha.

Now we are in Christchurch once again, where we are meeting Alex' mum to do some house shopping. We are expecting another decent amount of snow to fall around Queenstown by the time we get back there, so we want to get some more runs in. And next weekend we have the France vs. All Blacks game in Auckland to look forward to. What a month!