Snowboarding on Mount Ruapehu

Welocme back and thank you to those that supported me on my last post. Really gave me the motivation to carry on as I have still so many pictures and stories to share.

So here we go...

I'd always been interested in snowboarding. Ever since I was a kid I loved the thought of it. Do you remember the snowball fight/chase from the film Jack Frost? No not the horror movie, the family film where Michael Keaton plays the father who was brought back to life in the form of a snowman. What a classic! Such a cool scene that it's been stuck in my memory since.

But you see I live in England, not exactly a country known for it's ski slopes. So for 20 years I put it on the to do list.

Fast forward to 27 years old, I finally had a chance. The trip would take us from Auckland in New Zealand south to Mount Ruapehu, a place I'd never heard of before but we were in the hands of some locals so why not?
So we hired a car and off we went!

What's the car? God knows. Some form of Nissan I'll probably end up in when I'm older...but it got us there.

It was a fairly long drive, about 5 hours so we needed somewhere to stay for 2 nights as we'd heading up to the slopes early next morning.

It was night time when we got there so hadn't seen anything outside, we had no idea what was around us.

Here's our accommodation...

Is that a train? Yes, yes it is 😅
We stayed in an old derailed carrage. It was pretty awasome! It had a double bed in the back, a bunk (where I slept) and a sofa-bed. Electricity meant lights, fridge, kettle and I'm pretty sure it had a shower too.

Best of all it's only a 15 minute drive from the slopes.

After a game of Articulate and a good nights sleep, we had breakfast and headed up the mountain. As we walked outside to the car I realised how high we were. About 15 meters away was a very big drop with nothing but tree tops all the way down. You could feel the cold air hit you as soon as you walked outside, no need for a cold shower!

When we reached car park it was still surprisingly busy considering it was the last few weeks of the ski season. I got my first look at what awaited me.

As I walked up to get the equipment I learnt two facts that I didn't know before hand.

1 Mount Ruapehu is a volcano

1. Mount Ruapehu is an active volcano.

This just blew my mind, I was snowboarding for the first time...on an active volcano which could blow at at any minute.... cool!

The view from the top was so calming. We were so lucky to go up on a blue bird day. This is basically when the sky is clear and the sun is out and boy was it out!

I could of sat here for ages taking in the atmosphere but remembered I was there to snowboard.

They had a an offer for a group lesson too and since I knew how hard it was I took up the offer. Best of all, most of the group didn't turn up. It was just me and one other girl so it was basically a one to one for the price of a group lesson.

The instructor was really good too and knew his stuff. His technical knowledge was spot on as was his problem solving. Apparently I picked it up pretty fast and was able to link a few turns by the end of the two hours.

Overall I really enjoyed the experience and I have to say it's so much easier than surfing! If you haven't tried it, you should really give it a go!

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