Aaron's heliski day

Aaron shredding it!

2 weeks ago, before the knee issue, Guy( Aaron's boss) shouted Aaron to a days heliskiing as he has now been contracting to him for 10 Years.The boys came home looking so tired but so happy.

Aaron has Bu**ered his knee

Aaron is off work for at least 3 weeks having had a fall learning to Ski( he normally snowboards)
His ACL is probably ruptured, and the Median( other side) torn. He will have a specialists appointment in a weeks time where he'll be sent off for a scan to find out for sure.

He came out for the days climbing with a comfy deck chair on Saturday. The 100m walk was abit much 6 days after the accident so it's probably quite bad.

He is quite demanding calling out for service from the couch, but hopefully as he heals I'll be able to leave him with some easy housework each day.

Don't worry abut him though there is good recovery if he has the operation, so he should be back to full speed soon enough.

Sally

Snowed in today!

3rd time this Winter!

Gold Coast may

We went to the Gold coast for a weekend to visit the family
We stayed with nanny, Cheryl and Wilson the dog.

Not sure who's having the best time

Learning the family history

Going over my notes with Nanny, she knew so many cool details down to the exact money her grandfather had when he arrived in NZ

A night at the Casino, Playing with wilson, Going to the Markets ( amazing fresh vege's), and a family lunch at Aaron's sisters, with the extended family.

Cahn's 9th birthday! his brand new bike. Conar (Cahn just taught him to ride)

Conar and Codi up a tree. Charlie on ground level

It was really cool to catch up with Dean, Helen, Neil, Xandar, and meet Neils sister and her girls too

Ski touring Wye

A few weeks ago Aaron and I set off to ski tour to Wye ice. The Snow was icy Stastrugii (windswept bumps) and terrible ski conditions, The ice was on and further down the valley we could see a cool looking Pillar. With the lure of a new line we decided to ski down to the pillar, climb it and then continue down the valley and hitch back up to our car at the end of the day, thinking the snow conditions would be much nicer in the valley.

Aarons splitboard infront of our Pillar

Aaron not too happy since there is water pouring down the pillar, making it unclimbable

we decide it's too far back to the other ice so continue down the valley at first snowboarding but quickly terrain becomes too flat, so we try it in ski mode( not reccomended)

In the icy conditiond and the lack of edges I kept slipping Towards the stream bed in the steeped sided area's

Soon things go from bad to worse and Due to the rocks poking through the soft snow we can no longer"ski" so we have to Post hole through snow with Ice climbing gear and touring gear on our backs.

Never knowing how far you would go through was exhausting.  Huge boulders, alpine shrubbery (damn you Spinifex) Sometimes it was so deep we had to crawl to make any progress. 3 hrs later we made it out to the Wye climbing area. Way too late in the day to get a ride back up remarkable we were rescued by our Lovely friends Shane and Nial, who went way out of their way to help us retrieve the car...You guys Rock!

It took me 3 days to recover, but no permanent damage done. A bit more adventure than we bargained on at the beginning of the day though

MULTI sport race Peak to peak

We entered the peak to peak as part of different teams
It goes ski down remarks ski field, Downhill bike the ski road and along into Frankton beach( my leg), Kayak along the lake to town, Run out to Coronet, Bike up the ski field road to coronet skifield( Aarons leg.
Aaron's team The Nailers beat mine the Ova Qualified...Bother!
My team has made a vidoe so I will hopefully link it later

some of my team mates and support crew in the morning setting up Kayak leg and dropping cars off
Guillaume, Jill, Alison, Sam, and ME

Girls iceclimbing trip

I did a wee report on the trip at www.queenstownclimbing.com under Ice/G man and Estelle return which has alot more photo's.

A couple of me on the day

Above: leading Ice by Rike

Below: Walking out by Melanie

A few of us Girls went for a great days climbing at Wye creek
Mel and Sam rockclimbing friends wanted to go so I also invited a few Experienced girls to help out, a few more friends were invited along and we had a crew of 8. Unfortunately Sam hurt her shoulder and couldn't make it last minute. A couple of the girls are Mum's so We made the most of our time and were out for 11 hours.

We were Blessed with Calm sunny weather
Jane and I set up topropes. Me on a nice easy one and Jane on a harder one. The girls all threw themselves at it. I was quite impressed by all the grit and determination on Display.
Celine bought Cake.(It may be 5 years since she ice climbed but she didn't forget the important stuff!)
Celine, Anna, had ice climbed before Too( Mel also But not enjoyably) and Birget,  and Rike were rockclimbers, so had all the fitness and rope skills.
Thanks to Jane's amazing tips Mel started to get the swing of things this time.

We finished off on some De;licat( or should that be desperate) mixed rock and ice.

Flying about

Aaron started flying lessons (paragliding) after our christmas break and is now qualified to fly without his instructor

I have been keeping busy riding my Bike and went in a local club race with T man and Tim.
Tim behind tagging in Tony( T man) for his lap. They were about 8-10 mins faster a lap than I was but it was a fun day



I have also been riding skyline gondola up and riding my bike down





I have also been working on The ford side family history. Got right back to early 1700's on some branches. The highlights are a convict great, great grandmother called Mary hurst. And a scandal of a  great grandmother running off with a married man two days after her 16th birthday.....  More as I uncover it.

Family /Gold Coast

We went over to the Gold coast to visit Aaron's Nanny
Aaron went on the Monday and I joined him for the weekend.
We had a surfing lesson, swam, shopped on the Saturday.
Surfing is exhausting! Aaron was quite good
On Sunday we had a big Family Meal out at Dean and Helens at Boysland( near Cunundrah , Mt Tamborine) Aarons sister Xander, her man neil and their 4 boys Cahn, codi connor and Charlie came out. Us, nanny and aunty cheryl, dean and Helen, Uncle michael on the Hillenaar side, with Kylie, Evan and Clay( Morgan was working!)

Codi- Cheeky grin, and cuddles

Cahn- big and strong

Shy boy Connor with a special smile

Aaron and Xander

 Little charlie on the right

Evan in the middle

Cahn and Codi eating

Same crew- Kylie with Evan

All the ladies

Hellen,Xander,Kylie,Cheryl ,Nanny

Cousin Evan and nephew Codi

All of us

Dean, Cahn, Me, Connor, Xander, Neil and Charlie, Helen and Molly Cheryl, Kylie and Clay, Mick (Michael) and Evan, Aaron, Nanny

We had a really great time

our love to you all x x x x x x x x x x x 

For Millsy

Stop sulking that I haven't mentioned you on my blog
http://sallyandaaron.blogspot.com/2009/06/aaron-millsy-and-me-biking-at-wynyard-q.html
Also Naked man is in my birthday pics at Jardines!
http://sallyandaaron.blogspot.com/2009/06/sallys-birthday.html
X X Sally

Whakaari

Whakaari is a new DOC area near Glenorchy where you can hike, horse ride, and bike ride the old sheelite mining trails. Ther are several loops you can do, we did the main one (Judah track) as the other (McIntosh) you need to do a crossing of the Buckler burn and the rivers are High as we have had so much rain.

 Heading on out

 Going up the Judah rd

 The road got steeper and steeper first we pushed and for bits near bonnie jean we carried

 My old man at Bonnie jean hut. 

 Doc have left it like someone just moved out. A cool place to find a museum!

 Our bikes

 The tractor is still in the shed!

Onwards and upwards to Heather Jock hut. This is a doc hut you can sleep in( 3 beds?) and has a great veiw. Quite a romantic spot!

Aaron in Heather Jock

We whizzed down the Bulldozed switch backs to Jean hut. It may be easier to go up this way?

3hrs up and 1 down. We did a wee detour to check out the buckler burn but It was a torrent.

Good work Doc. A fun place to visit

Happy new year!

Happy New Year everyone!

We dropped the olds off at the airport and headed straight for a night in the South Wye Hilton.

 Sally putting a bolt on the new route in progress

Nothing like a nice cool bottle of chapmpagne after a hard days work

 Aaron drillingon lead on the second pitch( hard and scary!)

Back at the top of pitch 1 

Merry christmas

We had the Carters down for Chrissie and Predictably we did loads of hikes and Richard got out to fish as much as possible

Our mighty Hunter( didn't catch a thing) Setting off.

We walked Lake hayes and the Moke Lake as a warm up, for the big trip

Dad at Moke lake

The next day mum and Dad headed off to the Greenstone. The following day we got a call from DOC to go pick them up

Mum had a week fall put her arm out and it's dislocated and broken

Back to gentle trips

Skippers was fun we did a walk to a hut and mine site. Explored the ruins

 Aaron trying out the river crossing old style!

 Skippers bridge

A walk up Ben lomond and back for mums next doctors visit

 John and Steph arrived with their little man
Family fun a wee walk for some John boy rode bikes with aaron and I and we all met up at the beach after

 family relaxing as Vinnie and I throw sticks

 Rich fishing again

 John getting in on the fishing action

 Reading a story to my Darling boy!

 Remarks walk with dad and Rich. COLD!!!!! 3 deg and a bitter wind

Vinnie found something that he can read!

we love you all and are so glad that you came all this way to spend time with us
XXXXXXX( one for each including the Bump)
Sally and Aaron