the inside track

COLIN SLATER'S NZ UPDATE

17 July 2000


Well the latest update is that theres no update! There's been no moisture, let alone snow around for the last 12-14 days in most of the country.

While Auckland, Coromandel etc are getting hit with 70KMH winds and up to 2 feet of rain further south theres ben nothing, zilch, bugger all.Whakapapa last weekend resembled the surface of the moon with the weird Tongoriro lava landscape poking out of the thin, icy snow cover. High point of the day (except for golf in Turangi) was watching fat Aucklanders with flash-arse ski suits, goggles etc etc get their new skis out and proceed to trash them on every rock that was poking out. I, obviously, resisted the temptation to share the 20 foot wide slopes with approximately 1/10th of NZ's population.

South is the same story, there has been unrelenting sunshine and little or no rain/snow/anything for up to 2 weeks. Temperatures everywhere have been very cold at night which has rescued the snow and allowed snowmaking to run at most places but it's not looking too flash at all!

Here in Wellington its been HOT, shorts and T-shirt stuff roughly 20-22 degrees during the day and roundabout freezing at night, weird, winter eh ?

The skiing itself is pretty good on most trails, Cardrona and TC seem to be holding up, Mt Hutt looks a bit rough but the trails are well covered and the snow is keeping well in the cold temperatures.

Anyway we are now fully rolling out the snow dances, prayers, incantations etc. in preparation for the HUGE storm that SURELY must be coming soon

Colin