Snow Farm, Wanaka, South Island

We're on top of the world, ma! Quite literally, we are, due to the fact that we're on top of a mountain range which looks as if somebody sculpted it - all pointy, snow capped mountains. Snow Farm is a relatively new resort on the opposite range from the (more famous) Snow Park where NZ's down-hill ski and snowboarding troupes are based. Here, the resort specialises in 2 disciplines - cross-country skiing and Southern Hemisphere Proving Grounds (car and tyre manufacturers come here to test their products in the snow).
Apart from the staff (all young, trendy ski types) we're the only one's here. There are a couple of older folks but we have the place to ourselves. The Proving Ground has a small army of Japanese men but they seem to exist only after dark where they drive their cars like madmen up and down the mountain tops.
So, we're in a lovely lodge with a huge bubble bath (the boys' slang term for jacuzzi) and we're enjoying some great home cooked food. In fact, we're enjoying it so much that I have forgotten my (limited) meat training and can now easily confuse beef for lamb at dinner. I blame high altitude and NZ Pinot Noir.
Cross-country skiing is a wonderful sport...it's even better if you live in a small country. It's like skiing, across country knocking down trees with your face. Having been taught by Marie in Norway I have picked up the 3 basics. How to put on my skis, how to slide down a hill on my arse and, finally, how to walk down a hospital corridor. But the one crucial fact is that the old adage about snow here is true...the form of precipitation that occurs 3 weeks prior and after the morning of your departure. We've arrived in their worst season for snow in years...in fact, I actually prefer to say we've been ice skating on grass.
Seba and Oscar are naturals. Naturally, they feel that it is better to stay indoors in the warmth with the toys and DVDs and let the grown-ups throw themselves off the tops of mountains. Showing extreme patience and consideration, Marie ventured that we should both pull them in some pulks - this is short hand for "sledge of death". The idea is that you pull your precious ones along in a contained sledge up and down the mountains. That's fine if your an expert skier, which Marie is, so she makes it look easy. When you're an ex-bacon salesman with an unnatural sense of balance then having to not only worry about your own flesh and blood but also that of, your own flesh and blood, it becomes a tad worrying. Sebastian, sensing his Dad's unease, decides after all of 26 seconds that he's had enough. This was easy enough to tell. Marie helped by shouting which dragged me out of my snow-blinding concentration. Seba's pulk had turned over and I was pulling him along on its' side. I won't go into the fine detail of how this was corrected but the procedure is complicated and can involve helicopters if you're as crap on ski's as I am.
After that, we were unconvincing in trying to show them both how wonderful and fun playing in the snow is!
Actually, they did put their ski's on, and we took them down a (well, to us it was) small hill. We built a piss-poor snow man who's face resembled that of the Elephant Man and who's body looked like an over-excited trans-sexual (i.e. 3 breasts). Had a game of football in the snow (and in the ski tracks - this is a cardinal sin here which results in execution) and did some sledging until Seba couldn't be bothered to pull is sledge up the 10m hill - and neither could Marie or I.
But, we're still becoming experts in chillin' out and tomorrow we head to Queenstown where I am testing out the fine details of the holiday insurance by participating in the world's largest bunji jump. Nothing better than testing your comfort zone. Obviously, if Marie writes the next blog you will have to come to one of 2 conclusions. Either I chickened out and she will be filling you in with all the fun and laughter of how, at 150m above a canyon, I developed some brown stains in my pants. The second option is that I died. In New Zealand, the latter is considered the height of outdoor adventure sport fashion! I'm sure they have a rubber band which can cope with a rather large portly man from England. This last sentence will now be considered a nil and void policy default by the insurance company.