Because I'd left the curtains open, the sunrise woke me up, but it was worth it - a golden sun had turned the sky rosy, with small purple clouds, and the snow was pink. About half an hour later the sky was cloudless, about ten inches of snow had fallen overnight, everything was glittering. I convinced Mikey to run out on the balcony with me in barefeet and dressing gowns to take some pictures.

We had a leisurely breakfast in the room and then wrapped up in many layers of summer clothes to go and play in the snow. After taking a few photos around the hotel:

and after Mikey had helped push a Japanese tour group's minibus out of the snw and ice, we took the shuttle bus up to the ski resort at Iwikau. The bus had snowchains but even so it slid around the road quite a bit. At the top of the hill all the companies were getting ready for tomorrow's ski season, with snow blowers working hard, the clothing shops setting out their stock, and the avalanche warning on 'moderate'. We started walking, and had the intention of finding Mordor, but it was actually under a few feet of snow. The paths I chose to get the best views seemed, strangely, to be through the waist-high drifts and long rocky ridges. I had a great time in the snow, but I think Mikey had a few more issues with the mountains and the ice and the possible concealed crevasses and plunging to an icy death, so after about an hour or so we finally finished the off-piste treking (extreme walking?) and went back to the bus. I was slightly alarmed to see the avalanche warning had changed from 'moderate' to 'high' but when I asked the ranger guy, he reassured me it was ust the powdery snow underneath all the heavy wet stuff, and the really strong winds, so I assumed it was nothing to do with my choice of footpath.

Before we returned to the hotel for dry clothes (and a hot bath for me), we went for a walk to a waterfall. It was slightly further than we expected and the path was quite thick with snow. The trees were hanging very low over the paths too. It took us a couple of hours to get there and back, and the sky turned an ominous yellowy-grey about halfway through. By the time we were back and eating hot soup and chips the clouds had cleared again and the other volcano, Mount Ngauruhoe, was glowing in the sun.

The rest of the afternoon consisted of a hot bath, a nap, clean clothes and reading. We had supper and watched About a Boy until bedtime.