We are back! We have had a busy weekend and have spent a long time in the car but it has all been worth it. Rosie and Harry's reaction to the snow was exactly what we thought it would be and more.
It wasn't all sooth sailing as Taff was struck by food poisoning from a chicken sandwich at a service station on Friday night. To add to that, I came down with a bad eye infection on Saturday morning and a terrible head cold.
This wiped both of us out for much of the weekend but we battled on and I don't think the kids noticed too much. Kids are good like that, aren't they? :-)
When we first arrived at Mt Ruapehu it was overcast but dry. The roads were in great condition and after parking at Scoria Flat we caught the free bus up to Whakapapa. It was bustling and busy, Rosie and Harry were super excited to finally see real snow.
We were initially going to get the family sightseeing chairlift pass but it looked quite grey up the mountain so we decided to get the chair lift down to Happy Valley and hire tobbogans.
We towed the kids up and slid down a few times before we cottoned on to the fact that this was very tiring in soft snow! For successive runs they had to walk beside us up the hill while we towed the tobbogans, much easier. :-)
We had a few races and looked at some of the snowmen that people had made. There were lots of families around and the Whakapapa staff were excellent with Rosie and Harry.
They lifted them on and off the bus and chair lifts, it was more family friendly than I anticipated. I had read that it takes hours of preparation for one hour in the snow when you have small children. This was definitely true. Organising all their warm clothing, snacks and preparing them with lots of conversation about where we were going, etc, required a lot of preparation. A lot of questions arose from the visit too, especially when Rose found out that the mountain was a volcano!
Part Two of our weekend will be posted tomorrow. :-)
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