The weekend just gone was a bit of a mixed bag. I spent Saturday standing at the beach with a bunch of fellow kitesurfers waiting for the rain to stop and the wind to pick up. 5 hours spent huddling around the mens toilet block (it's the only building nearby) staring into space whilst the weather continually looked like it was about to change for the better.
By 2 o'clock, whilst we were still laughing and having a good time, we made the call that it wasn't going to happen and went home.
Sunday turned out to be one of the better days of the year. Mostly sunny and the wind built from 12 knots to 25 knots by 2 o'clock. I had some friends from work, Helene and Sam, come along for a lesson and they couldn't have picked a better day. By the end of Sunday they were both working the kite and having a great time. Meanwhile I splashed around with my usual lack of style and generally caused havoc in the water.
No photos sadly as we were all too busy having a good time to even think of bringing out a camera.

Last night Paul and I went for an hour session at snowplanet. I finally landed a big 180 and Paul worked on some rails.

Me hitting a ramp


  Paul works on a rail

Jarrod, a friend of mine from work, was kind enough to invite me to come Mountain Biking with him over the weekend. He even lent me his old bike so I had no excuse not to turn up!

A group of us travelled to the local bike trails, a place called Woodhill just around the corner from my normal kiting haunt Muriwai. $5 later and we were in the best and most fun trails I've ever ridden. Just the right amount of uphill and downhill sections with plenty of apparatus to play with as you went around. I even tried a few (small) jumps! Awesome fun.

Kylie shows us how it's done

Jarrod takes on a see-saw

Todd takes on a ramp

I try something a little less hardcore!

Todd goes big

Jarrod tries something a bit more technical!

Mike and Jarrod after a good morning!

It was the Simpl snow trip over the weekend and about 25 of us had planned to go down. There was a bit of a dismal forecast so a few people bailed out but some of us were looking forward to a weekend of drinking anyway and headed down.
Saturday was a right off as predicted, there were gale winds and heavy snow falls which closed the mountain down. Luckily we kept our spirits high with the aid of beer and games and still had a jolly time.

Sunday came and the snow report was a complete change.

"SNOW
We have had fresh snow overnight from 5-10cm on the Lower Field and 10-15cm on the Upper Field. Packed powder on trail, powder off trail. Fantastic snow conditions!
Base(Upper Mountain)     270 cm
New Snow(last 24 hrs)     10 cm"

No wind, blue skies, sunny and relatively warm (-1 or so). Even better, the dismal forecast had kept the crowds away so it was all ours for the taking! Yay!

I was lucky enough to have Paul, a friend from work, as my guide and he's a very experienced snow boarder. We had some epic powder runs down some off piste gulleys and, when we did run into people, every had a big, stupid smile on their face and everyone was on a big, big high.

The run of the day was down a gulley that was well off-piste. Just epic, epic 1-2 foot powder the whole way until we finally reached an impasse and had to climb out. 30 minutes of hiking and boarding later and we were back on a regular trail but it was well worth it.

We met everyone else at the cafe and the talk was all about the powder and which runs were good. I think Paul led me to the best spots and I'm still smiling as I write this.
Wow. What a weekend! EPIC!

I took my new camera to the beach on Sunday and managed to snap off a few pics whilst I had a break from kiting. 6 hours of epic conditions and I was dead from exhaustion. Then to top it all off I went to Snowplanet with Jen for 2 hours of snowboarding! I'm still recovering, what a day!

Kiters will spot the awesome conditions, waves out the back and dead flat sections on the inside. Beautiful.



Just another day at the beach



Chris does an s-bend



Shaun 1 footer railey to faceplant



Chris goes big



Me! (thanks to Athena for taking the pic)




Someone's kite gets munched by a wave!



James ponders his next move

I finally managed to scan some photos from the last weekend. Here they are, not much need for a background info!

Me

  Spencer

  Me

  James

  Athena

  Athena, Corne, Birte

  Spencer

Sunday brought about Tara and Tipene's leaving party at the Gypsy Tea Rooms in Ponsonby. As always, there had to be a crazy element and the party had a "70's Tennis" theme to it which led to some quite interesting costumes.
The happy couple themselves went through several costume changes and seemed to be having a right old merry time!

The rest of the weekend I was doing the usual (kitesurfing), ho hum.

Tara and Harriet

Tipene

Debs and Smithy

  Tara and Random

I had a magic weekend of kitesurfing after a windless 3 weeks or so! It felt good to get out again and I did feel quite unfit as it seems I've just been sitting around for the last 3 weeks just eating and drinking.

Anyway, here's some photos of the blowcarts that were shooting up and down the beach. I thought they were pretty cool and they don't half move! They reckon they can get upto 60kmh and I believe them!

Jen and I have been making regular Snowplanet trips on a Tuesday night as it's a great place to learn and practice any new tricks you might want to attempt.
Jen was good enough to bring her camera last night and managed to take this photo of me. By coincidence, this was also the first time I'd landed correctly off this particular rail.
 *note to self* Don't cover your face with your arm when having your photo taken.

We went to a James Bond party on Saturday that had been organised by the Biology Dept of the university. Jen managed to get us all tickets and Jen, Jez, Emma, Emma's boyfriend and myself all wandered in. Now normally I wouldn't protest about going to a party surrounded by young 19yr old girls but it was a free bar and as such the place was heaving with students overdosing on cocktails.
Luckily the d.j. was playing 80's music all night and after a couple of red bull and vodkas, I was finally coaxed out to play. Then Sunday was spent recovering, thankfully the wind never came in so I had the whole day to pull myself together.

Jen as Elektra King



Jen requests Wham. Again.

I travelled down to the snow again, and the Saturday was amazing. Blue skies, no wind and plenty of snow. Yay!
Sadly I didn't take my camera until the Sunday when it was cloudy, snowing and with the occasional white out. Here's the best photo I took all day which speaks volumes for my photographic ability.
Time to invest in some evening courses I guess!



It wasn't cold at all, as you can see from Tracy's outfit.