Downhill

Turangi - blink, and you'll miss it. I nearly did. Turangi is a small, rather non-descript village at the southern end of Lake Taupo (pronounced To-po) and is considered one of the premier trout fishing venues in New Zealand. It was also our base for the weekend on the mountain, a mere four hour drive from Auckland. The difference in climatic temperature was also noticeable.

We spent Saturday at Whakapapa ski field trying to remember how to control skis and boards without falling over, but i decided that it was far more fun to race headlong downhill and rely on the friction between by body and the snow to bring me to a halt!

The weather has definitely taken a wintry turn as winter storms are appearing with more regularity, interspersed with some cold sunny days and yet we are almost halfway through winter. The resident birds such as wrybill, new zealand dotterel and south island oystercatcher have already started to migrant south to begin breeding, and the high arctic breeders such as godwits and knots will return to spend their winter in the sun.