Whakapapa weekend

In the new job I'm doing I'm timetabled to work every other weekend so the weekends that I have off we try to make the most of. James had some building surveys to do south of Taupo (about 1hr from the ski fields) so he head off down to Taupo 1st thing Thursday morn. As I had to work on Thursday, I caught the last bus down to Hamilton on Thursday evening and spent the evening with Sal and Si before setting off on Friday morning down to National Park. Laura was already down at the ski fields and we got reports from her that lifts were open and the sun was shining so we decided to head straight to Turoa to hit the slopes. James met us at the ski fields, we got kitted up and headed straight on to the snow! Friday evening we headed to our cosy bach with a lovely log fire, we ate in and had a few beers chilling out for the evening.
Saturday morning we got up after a slight lie in and headed over to Whakapapa to check out the snow. We were very lucky with the weather and had beautiful sunshine all day. The snow was a bit patchy in places with some rocks coming through, but plenty for us to play around in! That morning we got a call from one of Sal's ICU friends who was thinking of heading down to join us with his wife and 18month old daughter, so they joined us in the pub after skiing where we had some dinner and a few beers before heading back so that Bethan (the baby) could be tucked up in bed. A baby in the bach didn't stop us from enjoying a few beers with cards and a couple of games of the big taboo!
We woke up Sunday morning to a view of Mt Ruapehu in the beautiful sunshine, so that's where we headed. Bethan went off with her Daddy to play in the snow with her sledge while her Mum (Becky) joined us for some skiing. After a fun morning we went down the mountain to join Rich and Bethan for lunch. After lunch we enjoyed a couple more hours skiing before starting our long drive (4hrs) back to Auckland. Unfortunately that was our last weekend skiing for a while as in 2 weeks time we will be back in England for a great holiday, can't wait!