Our first proper rainy weekend in Christchurch meant the usual Harrison wet weather double of biking and bouldering and this gave us a good chance to check out Uprising, Christchurch’s excellent bouldering wall. Not surprisingly the mini team raced up and down the wall at breakneck speed – had to pretend little Iona was 5 to get her in, but she did fine and showed no fear as per usual! Sunday was forecast for yet more rain so we dressed in full waterproofs and with all the Port Hills MTB tracks closed due to the weather we headed back to Bottle Lake Forest for some biking fun, of course the sun came out and we enjoyed the very muddy trails through the forest.
Despite being told by my UK dentist my teeth were in great shape and would last a year or two in New Zealand I sadly had a large filling fall out which I then bit into chipping two other fillings so headed to the expensive private NZ dentist fearing a big bill. The quote was $1200 for replacing the fillings (£100 or so on NHS) or $30,000 for crowns which they reckoned I needed!!!! Ouch, I phoned round a few dentists to get a better deal and managed to get the worst ones repaired for a more reasonable $500 but not a cheap nut to bite into!!
Meanwhile back at the house training was increasing in intensity and rumours circulated that Mount Hutt would open at the weekend for some little people making their long awaited return to the white stuff after 18 months off. Mount Hutt didn’t disappoint either with blue skies and some excellent wide pistes for the kids to work on their snowplough turns, despite the crowds and the need for a bus shuttle from a lower car park. The kids loved the magic carpet beginner run but soon outgrew the gentle slopes and it was time to up the ante with the chair lift to 2/3 the way up the mountain and some steady but controlled turns all the way back down. Really fun getting the whole family down a long green even though Iona needed a leash to keep her insane addiction to speed limited! Mount Hutt a bit of a trek for a day trip so looking forward to the Craigieburn club fields opening which are a bit closer. Of course no ski weekend is complete without the ski/surf double so Sunday was spent on some slightly messy but fun waves at Sumner beach (a nice short ten minute drive this time!)
A weekend away we’d been planning for a very long time but wanted to make sure the hot pools were open was Hanmer Springs with it’s tempting mountain biking and hot pool combo, and it didn’t disappoint in the slightest despite the cold wet weather. We stayed in the Pines Holiday park which gave us a cosy two bedroom unit at very cheap prices and we all found biking trails we loved from the bouncy pump track to the excellent green Snakes and Ladders up to the swooping red Bigfoot and some great tricky blacks off scenic Conical hill. Hidden in the woods were some great wooden animal sculptures and plenty of princess doors to open which kept the mini team entertained while Em and I had another blast round the trails. Everybody’s favourite part of the weekend was unsurprisingly the hot pools though and with 24 different pools plus some exciting water slides there were plenty to choose from. The two pizzas included deal was great too and made the high prices seem more reasonable. Definitely somewhere to come back to later in the year!
Ethan really is an engineer in the making, his ambitious working lighthouse project was designed, wired up and built with only a tiny bit of help from parents, impressive stuff. Amazingly this clever little boy has now reached the grand age of 8, it does seem only yesterday that I was racing round the Edinburgh bypass (in an impressive 24 minutes from home!) to get Em to the hospital to meet him in person. Ethan’s birthday weekend started well with more biking in the rain (really is the best outdoor option on a wet day as pretty sheltered in the trees!) – this time back to Mcleans Island, Iona perfected the art of speeding through puddles without getting wet and Sara found some tasty looking but highly poisonous mushrooms. Sunday was the big superhero party and we somehow survived an invasion of fifteen hyperactive mostly 8 year olds, they seemed to enjoy the superhero themed games we came up with and Em did her usual magic with the cake. Most importantly Ethan had a brilliant time and got some great presents from friends and family and rounded off his birthday celebrations with some great laser quest action with cubs later in the week. Iona asks pretty much every day when her birthday is, thankfully not for another three months! Winter weather definitely here now finally – near the end of term we had 10 days of no sun, rain and grey skies (all very Scottish and dreich) which was quite the contrast with the endless summer we had earlier in the year. Despite this I continued my plan to cycle over summit road at least once a week, never icy or rainy up there luckily but one week was in dense cloud. Em tried it too one day and continues to run up Mount Pleasant regularly in between the nursery run to keep herself fit, very lucky to have these hills on our doorstep!
And finally after the longest term I’ve ever taught at 12 weeks (holidays moved forward two weeks thanks to Covid-19) we reached the winter two week holiday. After a typical end of term playing guitar and singing “Someone you loved” to 800 people in assembly, which seemed to go down well, we excitedly jumped in the car and set out south for some Central Otago fun in the snow at Wanaka, keen to make amends for our criminally short visit in the summer! A quick stop in Geraldine to ride some tractors and work off some steam at the excellent playpark was followed by a second stop at the scenic Lake Pukaki for some bouldering, sadly no views of Mount Cook today but still scenic enough!
Welcome to the White room! We started our ski week at Cardrona in some laughably bad visibility skiing but it didn’t matter at all as the snow was soft and fun and the kids loved the beginner slope again – this time we did two runs of the long green from the top and it’s amazing how quickly they improve, Iona and Sara especially growing in confidence with every turn. The next day was even worse weather so we wisely chose not to try skiing again and stayed down in town, a morning at Puzzling World in heavy rain with it’s excellent optical illusion exhibition and their notoriously tricky maze which would have been more fun on a sunnier day, Ethan was the king of the maze and rescued us all to find the way out! Back to Clutha Cottage for some tasty toasted cheese sandwiches to warm us up and it stopped raining just enough in the afternoon for a scenic biking trip along the river (always a nice touch to bike from your door) and back through the woods, only getting a mild soaking near the end, though one section of the track was basically a river due to all the rain and daddy got in trouble for adding in an extra loop for everyone at the end!
After two days of rain we were glad when the weather changed to frosty mornings and proper alpine blue skies, so back into the hills we went, this time to Treble Cone which is a bit steep for beginners really but you’ve guessed it the kids loved the beginner slope, this time complete with a poma so they could get the independence of getting themselves up the slope. Ethan braved the very long green from the top with me which was great to start but the bottom section was very tough ice and moguls which he did really well to get past! The off piste skiing was some of the worst I’ve encountered, everything from concrete like heavy wet snow to icy and uneven, teeth chattering “hard pack” all with bushes and rocks poking through, sadly the decent lift off the back opened right at the end of the day and no time to lap the fresh powder underneath.
Day three we had ambitious plans to ski the Remarkables and see how different it was from our summer climbing and hiking trip but despite leaving Wanaka in blue skies and sunshine we were hit with a blizzard on the Crown range road and with 4WD cars sliding down the road towards us it was time to get the snow chains on and slowly inch on over the pass. Queenstown side of the range was dreadful weather so we looped back to Wanaka via the low road and three hours later we were back in Wanaka in the sunshine again wondering why we left at all, plan b) had been the cinema but with such sunny weather and after three hours of sitting down in the car for nothing it was nice to jump on the bikes again and explore the super picturesque tracks and fun playparks around the lake. Daddy even got to build a technical trials rock garden – certainly makes a change from endless sandcastles! Back to the cottage with it’s impressive log burner stove to warm up, clear skies means another cold one! Nice to meet up with the legend that is Kiwi Steve again for some beers (10% ABV!!) and impressive snack consumption on all sides.
Blizzard! 
The next day looked like more of the same so we waited for a while to see if Cardrona would open and in the end gave up and opted for the ever sunny Treble Cone again, sadly it seemed half of New Zealand had come to the same conclusion and the (mildly terrifying) access road was closed due to the car parks being full. Luckily Treble Cone had a good backup plan and ran bus shuttles up the hill for free instead and the lifts seemed to cope okay with the extra people. Kids did their usual hundreds of laps of the baby slope and this time worked on their backwards skiing which is coming along nicely! Everyone managed the long green from the top (with some help for the girls on the icy moguls) and Dad Chad managed to finally get the skins on for some long awaited backcountry summit adventures, though still not the best snow for such endeavours. Em had her first bad luck of the week when the quad chair broke down and she couldn’t get her backcountry fix too…
Time for a rest/travel day after all that skiing and biking and we headed to Lake Tekapo for the last few days to stay in the fancy modern YHA there. En route we checked out the Clay Cliffs near Omarama which were impressive to look at but pretty sketchy to explore and not a safe climbing option being tottering piles of conglomerate and loose mudstone, glad to get the kids back to the car in one piece! Arrived in plenty of time for an afternoon of hot pools, saunas and steam rooms, good for aching ski muscles and rounded the rest day off in style with the excellent gourmet burgers at the restaurant by the YHA. Em and I agreed it was the most scenic YHA we’d stayed at anywhere in the world, right on the shores of the lake with snowy mountain views in all directions. The kids tried their best though to get us thrown out by gathering complaints (verbal and on paper!) for their shouting in the social areas and early hours but we managed to stay both nights luckily! Umm if you want a quiet night’s sleep maybe don’t stay in a YOUTH hostel!
Final days skiing was at the well named Round Hill ski resort on the eastern shores of Lake Tekapo which was a very scenic gravel road drive from town. The weather was the best day of the week and the resort is a family friendly sun trap with families setting up BBQs on the slope, great sledging and an extensive learners area and if you are into piste skiing some amazing wide groomed pistes to whizz down. But as most people know Em and I crave the backcountry wild mountain experience rather than the crowds and queues of a resort, no matter how nice it is, it’s still a ski resort! Despite more signs telling me the backcountry was “closed” – not quite sure how you can close the backcountry, I strapped on the skins and headed up the obvious steep big hill towering above the resort to get some great views out across the Southern Alps and Lake Tekapo. Finally got to ski some untracked powder and some great spring snow lower down after some careful aspect selection to maximise soft snow and what a great run to finish the ski week. Em’s turn but sadly her skiing bad luck continued as ski patrol called her back down from 1/3 of the way up the mountain and said if you use their lift and their car park you had to respect their rules, very frustrating for her and not our usual experience in resorts in Scotland.
Last day was sunny yet again but starting to get windy so we explored the fun biking trails just East of town with some great views of snowy mountains and some fun single track and slaloms through the pine cones amongst the pretty pine trees. Kids starting to look a little tired on the uphills (no pomas or chairlifts here girls!!) and after a quick lunch we headed back to Christchurch to sort out the mountain of wet ski and biking gear- top tip don’t take scooters, stand up paddle boards and guitars with you on a skiing/biking trip as a) you won’t use them anyway and b) they will repeatedly fall out of the boot on your head and annoy you immensely! Overall a brilliant week of adventures in Wanaka and Lake Tekapo, the NZ scenery continues to impress for sure and some great skiing and biking to be had. The kids skiing has improved so much in a week and but for a bit more fresh snow and less strict backcountry rules for mummy and daddy’s off-piste fix an excellent way to start the holidays, now I need to work out how to cope without mummy as she goes back to work tomorrow for three days, yikes, wish me luck!
Harrison Family Adventures Down Under 
Thanks for sharing, looks like you are making the very best of everyday you are there! Good oh!! THE LUCK OF THE CHAD (& HARRISONS) this was a very good year to leave UK and go to NZ, and thanks to your posts we can share in the adventure. The kids look like they are having the time of their lives = brill stuff 🙂 🙂 love Helen and Co xxx
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