OK - photos are uploaded and ready to rock. Lots of scenery stuff so if you don't like lakes and mountains (you weirdo), don't bother. It is CHUCKING it down here. Approximately 45 feet of rain has fallen in the past few hours. This, I keep telling myself, is a good thing, the reason being that if it's raining in Wanaka, it's dumping snow high up in Cardrona. They've shut the already treacherous access road so no riding for anybody today, just wandering rou...

Awesome day on the hill, but Christ, do we get spoiled in Tignes and Val D'Isere?! Made me laugh today, the differences. France - you live on the mountain, walk or get a free bus to the nearest sophisticated funicular / high-speed 8 man chair / gondola, and have the choice of over 300km of groomed pistes and virtually unlimited off-piste powder. New Zealand, Cardrona - you live 45 minutes away from the mountain, the last 25 of which consists of drivin...

Breathtaking. Pure and simple. But more of that in a minute. After another flight from Singapore to Sydney (on which I had a total result. Upgraded to a Club single traveller seat - more legroom than Shaquille O'Neal would need, celebrated with a bottle of bubbly which was on the house! or plane more accurately), then another over a pristine turquoise sea basking in sunshine to New Zealand, I arrived at Christchurch airport 28 hours after leaving Heathrow. ...