Ski Resort Series: Mount Washington

March 11, 2020March 3, 2020 / Maria / 5 Comments

Now that I’m finally up to date on my posts about our trip to New Zealand, it’s time to return to my ski resort mini-series from last winter! Every year me and my friends go on a ski trip to Interior BC, usually around 4-5 hours driving distance from Vancouver. We like to stay in chalets right on the mountain and we finally ran out of new ski resorts in the Interior and decided to take the ferry to Mount Washington instead.

We drove out after lunch on Thursday and had a chalet booked right at the foot of the slopes. It was an uneventful ferry ride, but the drive up the mountain more than made up for it. About 10 minutes before we reached the chalet, my car came across another car pulled over on the side of the road. It turned out to be one of our other companions – poor Meg who had hit one pothole and ended up with two burst tires on the right side (we’re talking rims on the ground). The benefit of going with so many people is that is wasn’t too hard to call for help and we ferried everyone and their gear up to the chalet while Meg waited for the tow truck to bring her car down to Courtney. Fortunately there was no real harm done except for Meg’s bank account and we finished off the evening with mulled wine, chocolate fondue, and a soak in our hot tubs (yes, we had 2!).

We were expecting the snow at Mount Washington to be on the wet side, but we ended up getting pretty awesome conditions. It was just around zero degrees on Friday, so it was wet, but the mountain dropped snow on us the whole day, making for poor visibility, but some pretty sweet powdery conditions. Only about half of us went skiing on the first day – I’d debated only skiing one day this year and instead checking out some of the snowshoe trails, but I couldn’t resist and ended up skiing both days. It wasn’t really snowing in the morning, but we had trouble seeing through the low clouds on the slope; they did eventually clear and we skied some gorgeous sunny(ish) runs before lunch.

After lunch it was a totally different story with the snowy coming down thick. We were stoked about what the conditions were going to be like the next day, but it accumulates so fast that we has some really great runs on Friday too, though the visibility did get worse as the day went on.

As usual, we have a pretty well-tested meal plan for the weekend and I made traditional Newfoundland Jiggs Dinner and a turkey, followed by one of Emily’s famous cakes. Some of the group did go snowshoeing in the afternoon and boasted about how awesome the trails were over at the Nordic Center. Overall it was a low key evening, but I think everyone enjoyed relaxing and watching the snow pile up outside in anticipation of the next day.

Saturday was the kind of skiing conditions you dream about…. almost. It was a gorgeous sunny day with 10-15 cms of fresh powder on the slopes! We all got up early to catch some of the first lifts up the mountain. The only problem was that only half of the lifts were actually open. Apparently it had gotten pretty windy overnight and was still windy at the top of the mountain, so the peak chair was closed. We did a warm up run without too much fanfare, but then we were forced to wait 30+ minutes in the lift line for every run after that. It was super disappointing to spend the beautiful weather waiting in line and the group started getting a little antsy.

We decided to head over to another lift to try our chances and fortunately by the time we got over there, the remaining lifts had opened. It was still a longer wait than Friday (which had really been no wait), but much better than earlier. We spent a lot of time on the far side of the mountain on the sunset lift and really enjoyed the conditions. The group split up a bit after that and I did a few runs from the top of the mountain before heading over to the bunny hill to help Lien, who was learning to ski. We decided to ski through lunch with the intention of ending the day early. But then we couldn’t bear to leave the awesome conditions and ended up skiing until close and having a late lunch.

I wouldn’t say Mount Washington was one of my favourite mountains, but it was definitely a comfortable one. It’s a great mountain for beginners and with the exception of the Outback at the back of the mountain (all double blacks), I was willing to ski pretty much any of the runs. It’s a nice mountain if you like nice wide runs. There were some nice gladed areas to try too, but I feel there was a bit less to explore over some of the other mountains we’ve skied.

We finished our last night with Brandon’s delicious hot pot and played games into the night. As usual, our accommodations were pretty awesome. This year we had a few less people, so they felt particularly spacious as we had two units (the upstairs and downstairs unit in the same chalet). It had a really nice log cabin feel, I just wish we could have figured out how to get the fireplace working! So overall it was a great trip with some really unexpectedly great conditions, despite the long lift waits on day 2.

Saying Goodbye

March 7, 2020March 3, 2020 / Maria / Leave a comment

The last stop on our 5 week tour of New Zealand was a little trip to the north of Auckland. Sadly we never made it up to the Bay of Islands, which was the one thing I had to drop from the itinerary. It’s hard to believe that even with 5 weeks, it still wasn’t enough time. I would have loved to have 1 more week, but had I gone for 6 weeks I probably still would have said the same thing.

Instead of going the whole way north, we just did a few of the attractions near Auckland. We’d planned to go on a glass bottom boat ride at Goat Island Marine Reserve, but the weather decided to ruin one more thing for us and it was cancelled just as we were pulling out of our hotel in Auckland. It wasn’t raining, so we think it was due to wind? We’re not really sure. But we made the best of it and decided to drive out to Muriwai Gannet Colony instead.

Seth did his bachelors honours thesis on the gannets in Newfoundland, so this stop was mostly for him, but I ended up really enjoying it as well. The gannets have settled their colony right on the cliffside, which is a bit weird for seabirds as they usually stick to islands to avoid predators. It definitely smells like a bird colony, but it was surprisingly fun to watch all the birds interacting together and we ended up spending the better part of an hour just watching them flying around and fight among themselves.

Then we continued north to Tawharanui Provincial Park for our last hike of the trip. Turns out it’s pretty popular among the locals and there were a ton of families boogie boarding in the waves at the beach. We ate our lunch watching the water, but then headed a little more inland to go tramping through the fields. Tawharanui is interesting as far as parks go because it’s the first park where the government tried to have a blend of eco-sanctuary, farming, and recreation. So the park is gated with a predator fence going around the whole thing and is a popular place to release birds that they’re trying to re-introduce. But there’s also a ton of farmland and people can enter the park for recreational activities like going to the beach and hiking.

We drove past so many fields and rolling hills as we made our way around New Zealand and I always felt like the hills were calling to me. They just looked really fun to hike up with all the wide open grassy space – but I never got the chance because they’re almost all farmland and fenced off along the road. Since Tawharanui is a mix, I finally got my farmland hike! The hike starts off through field after field. It’s supposed to be a great place for birding, but we didn’t see a lot of birds out in the open space, so we just enjoyed the views. On the way back we took a different track through the woods in hopes of seeing more birds and it definitely paid off. Supposedly there are takahe wandering free in the park, sadly we didn’t see any of those, but we did see several North Island Saddleback! We’d seen the South Island Saddleback on Stewart Island and Seth really wanted to see one on the North Island, but they’re not very widespread. When we didn’t see one at Zealandia, he assumed he wouldn’t get to see one at all, but lucky for us, they had been released at Tawharanui as well and we were lucky enough to spot them.

It started to drizzle towards the end of the hike and we returned to the beach to find it completely empty. There was something really gorgeous about the lighting and the way the beach looked. The tide was out, but the sand was still wet from the rain, which gave beautiful reflections of the landscape. We took the opportunity to take some personal time at the beach to reflect about the trip and though I was looking forward to going home, it made me sad to leave. There’s a lot to love about New Zealand and I really felt that it was a place that fit our own personal values. Seth loved all the biodiversity and there’s a real appreciation of nature and wildlife. I just couldn’t get over all the gorgeous landscapes. I’m a sucker for beaches and mountains and I felt the country also had a real appreciation for it’s natural landscapes.

We spent one last night at a little cabin in Leigh. I’d really wanted to camp at Tawharanui for the last night, but it was full up. In the end it was for the best though because it really poured overnight and I can’t think of anything worse then trying to pack up wet gear and then having to fly back to Canada with it.

Our flight didn’t leave until 2pm, so we re-arranged and re-packed all our gear, leaving what remained of our food in the donations box in the hostel kitchen. We stopped at a car wash to give our rental a good cleaning and then dropped it off and made our way to the airport. Unfortunately the flight was delayed, but it was direct flight, so at least we didn’t have to worry about missing any connections. It was one of the weirder flights I’ve been on – it left at 3pm in the afternoon and we arrived in Vancouver at 7am in the morning… the same day! Gotta love crossing the dateline!

It was a Wednesday and I had to go back to work the next day, so we were glad to have the whole day to relax, but it ended up not being that relaxing because we arrived back to Vancouver right in time for a snowstorm! It’s no more than a 45 minute drive to our house from the airport, but it ended up taking us almost 3 hours to get home… in a cab! Vancouver doesn’t deal well with the snow and everything was stalled on the highways, but eventually we made it.

I tracked all our stats while we were on the road and at the end of the day, we drove 4600km, hiked 150km, kayaked 26km, and biked 25km! I’m probably a little biased because I spent so much time there and it was my honeymoon, but I would definitely say New Zealand was one of the best trips I’ve ever taken! Hope to go back again some day!

Cathedral Cove and Waiheke Island

March 4, 2020March 3, 2020 / Maria / 1 Comment

After Hobbiton, it really felt like our trip was starting to come to a close, but we still had a few fun activities left. One that I was really looking forward to was a day at the beach at Cathedral Cove and had my fingers crossed for nice weather. We stayed in a small town called Hahei at this lovely backpackers lodge and spent the afternoon exploring around the town – getting ice cream, walking along the beach, and having a few local beers. Beach towns always have a great vibe and we felt really relaxed.

The next day the weather was great and we decided to skip the water taxi and hike out to Cathedral Cove, but not before renting some snorkeling gear at the local dive shop. It’s not too long a walk to Cathedral Cove, about an hour, and there are gorgeous views of the ocean and cliffside all along the trail. We took our time on the way there and decided to stop at the first beach to do the Gemstone Snorkel Trail. It’s basically a series of buoys in the water that you can snorkel between and there’s supposed to be all kinds of cool fish.

I ended up having a great time, but I’d advise that if you’re visiting Cathedral Cove, the snorkel trail is really better off done by boat. It is a little bit of a swim to get out to the buoys. I’m a strong swimmer and a former lifeguard, so I thought it was fine, but I was concerned about Seth and would really have felt better if we had lifejackets, which we didn’t. Seth swam out to the first buoy, but it was his first time snorkeling and he couldn’t really get used to it and had no where to stand up, so he bailed, but I had a great time swimming around. I didn’t end up following the buoys, but rather just swam around inside them until I found the fish. I did a bit of research after and I’m pretty sure I saw some blue maomao, red moki, banded wrasse, and maybe some snapper. The red moki was my favourite and looks like a zebra fish.

We continued on along the trail until we finally arrived at Cathedral Cove! It was a weekend, so it was a bit on the busy side, but we found a nice little spot at the back of the beach to hang out for the day. The main feature of Cathedral Cove is the archway/cave that goes through the rock from the first beach to the second beach. There are several sea stacks around and beautiful golden sand, so it makes for a really picturesque location. Plus the water is really warm, so I had a blast swimming and we spent a ton of time in the water since it was so hot. Seth tried out the snorkel again and had a lot more fun with it in the shallows. We found some more fish swimming around and Seth was way more interested (then I would have been) in all the organisms growing on the rocks.

We planned to take a water taxi back, but there were so many people using them that it was a 2 hour wait to get on one, so we just walked back to Hahei instead and grabbed another ice cream before hitting the road for the last part of our road trip.

It was back to Auckland for round 2. Although we didn’t actually end up spending that much time in the city. We wanted to finish up most of our food, so we had dinner at the hostel and had a lazy evening. The hostel was pretty interesting actually, it’s basically an old train station that has been reconverted into a hotel/boarding accommodation. So half the people actually live there for months at a time and the lobby is a huge train station entrance.

Our next day was devoted to a trip to the nearby island, Waiheke, which is known for it’s wine. It’s about a 45 minute boat ride to get there and we had booked a hop-on hop-off tour for the day. It was still a bit too early for wine, so we did the first part of the bus tour, stopping for an hour at the local beach, before starting our wine trail for the day. New Zealand definitely has some good wine, but it also makes for a pretty expensive day. Very few places do free tastings, so you usually have to pay $10-15 for a tasting. We each had our own for the first few places, but the more liquored up we got, we started sharing the tastings instead.

I think we ended up doing 5 wineries. We had a light lunch at the first one, Wild Estate, and Seth went for a beer tasting since it was also a brewery. We stopped briefly into Stonyridge, which is one of the island’s most well known and most widely found wines. It was one of my least favourites though and I only ended up doing a small sample. Gorgeous views though! Next we went to Tantalus, which was probably my favourite of the day. It has this gorgeous building and the truffle fries were TO DIE FOR. The wine was great too and we each did a taste, but I still dream about those truffle fries.

The last two wineries were more memorable for the views. We went up the hill to Batch Winery, which has an amazing view looking out over the island, and then finished at Mudbrick (another really popular winery) for one last taster. In terms of decor and landscaping, Mudbrick was probably my favourite, It’s on the west side of the island and had a great view looking out over the water to Auckland. Plus the buildings are all made of a pretty red mud brick and there were flowers and a lavender garden sprucing the place up! We did stop briefly in the village to do a little shopping around before heading back across the water to Auckland.