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.