All the missing pieces..

...or at least some.

Weekend before last we went to a ski club owned ski field - Fox Peak. Where they use a rope tow with a "nutcracker". Not quite what I thought this would be but equally bad.

So this is a picture of the tow rope:
And this is a picture of the nutcracker:
The trick is to get the 2 of them together somehow without braking any fingers while closing the nutcracker around the rope and holding on to it while being pulled up the hill. It's a "mountain skill in itself" (http://www.chillout.co.nz/nutcracker.asp).

Actually quite simple on skis but I never managed to make it work for me on the snowboard. There was a Japanese girl who tried this for about 6 hours without ever getting more than 30 m up the slope. Impressive! I gave up after 2 hours and since the hip belt messed up my back I didn't go back for more the next day but put skins on my skies and walked up the hill. My group had taken 2 rope tows up in the morning and helped shovel out the third uppermost one which had its rope buried under 2 feet of snow. By the time I got there they were all done and you can see the trench they dug in the picture. And Fox Peak in the distance.
Snow conditions were crappy but the weekend was quite entertaining and interesting in other aspects. We stayed at the ski club lodge and had a marvelous dinner and apres-ski party on Saturday night.
And again my German/European beer knowledge was put to the test:
Why is this beer called "Bavarian" made in Holland? Needless to say I failed miserably. (Couldn't get away with the "Bavaria is in Holland" explanation.)

Ben showed up on Monday to sunny weather and blue skies. Of course that didn't last and by Tuesday morning it was pouring down rain. All day without interuption. So we drove out to the Otago Peninsula and went to the Marine Studies Center where they let us touch slimy, and silky and crusty things from the ocean. There were pigfish with very human-like facial features:
And sea horses (we arrived at feeding time and could watched them suck up phytoplankton):
At the end of the day we made it out to Sandfly Beach trying to catch the yellow-eyed penguins returning from their daily foraging. Didn't see any of those but watched a sea lion rolling in on the beach:
Next day was sunny and we went hiking up Mt. Cargill. And were treated to a spectacular view at the top.
This is a picture of a geologic formation called the Organ Pipes near the top:
Did some adventuring and took a trail down the other side only to realize that we had missed the last bus home from there and it was dark by now. So we hitchhiked! After about 20 cars passed us a minivan stopped and a mom with a sick child gave us a lift. Phew - that wouldn't have been much fun to walk back along the dark road for 12km and another 4km back to the house. So we have learned to check the bus schedule before leaving and to take a headlamp - always. (Ben even takes his to the coffee place in the morning now!)

We also went biking the other day and finally we saw one: a possum (it was dead I might have to add):

The islands were visited by another major snow storm (meaning rain here in Dunedin) and we are gearing up for some snowboarding. As soon as Ben gets better. Which reminds me: need to go to the store now and figure out what type of flu medicine they sell here.