After arriving in Wanaka and finding our hostel we went to hire some snowboard gear for the week. We found a cheap little place that did backpacker rates and we thought the clothing and boards would be a bit shoddy but it was great stuff.

The following morning we were up early to begin our snowboarding experience. Wanaka looked beautiful that morning. There were no clouds and just a bit of mist which made it look really pretty. We head up to Cardrona which we'd heard was a lot better for beginners than Treble Cone which was close by too. It took us ages to drive up the mountain and it was really busy at the top! We found out it was school holidays so we hadn't picked the best week to go!!

David had never been snowboarding before but had skied so I tried to pass on some of my knowledge to him! What little knowledge I have anyway! Luckily with him it was a case of 'Do as I say not as I do' and he was flying down the nursery slope in 2 attempts! I think he was a bit more fearless than me as I'd lost confidence after breaking my arm before! I was rubbish going down the slope but we decided to crack on and give the green slopes a go. They're meant to be the easiest slopes. They were nice and wide and we were able to get down them ok. We had a lot of falls but that was to be expected on the first day! The second day was much better. I found I wasn't enjoying it too much the first day and actually found it quite stressful!! I was linking my turns on the slopes and tried a blue run. I was really rubbish at it and actually carried my board down some of the way!!

We got a bit of confidence up so the third day we decided to try Treble Cone which has less beginner slopes. We tried their green slope and it was almost impossible!! It definitely wasn't green by my standards!! The slopes were so narrow and I took so many tumbles! One quite spectacular one!! We were actually exhausted from 2 days snowboarding before and decided it wasn't really a good idea to carry on all day as we weren't paying attention to what we were doing and it felt a bit scary falling over all the time! So we just did half a day and head bcak to Cardrona for the 4th and 5th days.

The 4th day there was a complete white out! The whole of the mountain was covered in cloud! It had been moving creeping up the mountain for the past 3 days and had finally reached the top! It was absolutely freezing too! Every time we went on the ski lift it was almost unbearable! Our toes and faces were numb! It was a really unpleasant experience! We stuck to the green slopes and I found it really disorientating with the cloud! I just couldn't tell where I was going and I found it frustrating! I gave up before David that day and he tried a blue slope and managed to get down it really well which was great. I felt like I was holding him back at times as he seemed to be a lot better than me!

A chance chat in the cafe that afternoon told me where I was going wrong with my boarding and why I was taking so many tumbles! I wasn't doing one major thing that I was teaching, all to do with the movement of the board on the turns!! The next day I tried the technique I should have been using all along and found it to work! Typical that it was the last day and I picked it up! I was really annoyed with myself that I hadn't been doing it all along as I would have had a much better boarding experinece!! Anyway, at least I got it eventually and the last day was really good! We were trying blue runs and getting down them without much trouble! I didn't want to chance any harder runs!

We were exhausted after a week snowboarding but we had a spare day to look around Wanaka and luckily it was a really lovely day. We started off on the play park like big kids and ended in the pub! The perfect day really!