Snowed in and loving it

Right now we’re in the Cardrona Valley on day four of our winter break. I had been recounting my North America trip of a few years ago with a goal to finish before heading down south. However that master plan was scuttled by work pressures so I’ll get back to it later. There are more immediate travel tales to get on with!

We should have been up at the ski field today but it was closed on account of the dose of Antarctic weather currently sweeping the country. Amazingly there’s also been snow at home in Wellington and even in Auckland. Unheard of.

Cardrona is a teeny place and it was a bit of a mission getting here yesterday, which I’ll post separately about. We were planning to stay in Wanaka but a special deal came up at the Benbrae Resort, a fantastic place about three minutes walk from the iconic Cardrona Hotel. A little further along are the access roads to Cardrona ski field and Snow Park / Snow Farm. Since we were planning to spend most mountain time up at the Cardrona fields, staying close by in the valley made sense.

The scenery is stunning and white and it is a real novelty to stay somewhere like this. I’ve grown rather fond of the perfectly temperatured outdoor hot tub, especially being submerged in it while the snow is falling. We’re fully self contained but will also make good use of the pizza bar here at the resort and the food and drinks down at the hotel. We may have been down there a couple of times already…

Some others staying here have had travel plans mucked up by the weather given roads and airports have been closed. It is nice to not have any of those pressures; still, with snowboard gear not being used cabin fever may yet set in!

The snow status in the resort this morning!

The Cardrona Hotel

How cool is that! My mocha from the Cardrona Hotel this morning.

Backyard at the Cardrona Hotel

The awesome outside fireplace

Walking through a new subdivision - Cardrona could look very different in a few years

The Cardrona River. Brrrr.

How to combat bitterly cold wind on the morning walkabout

Not standard attire, unless one is heading for the hot tub

The place to be on a cold snowy day!