Summer of Snow - Part 2: Mt Hutt Village

So... Dan and I moved into 29 Colcord Place, a small 3 bedroom bungalow in Methven covered in knee-high snow. The place wasn't too bad - fully furnished, open fire, really sweet old lady next door etc. As the photo shows the driveway was quite long, and only a shovel-width had been dug to walk through, making it very difficult to get cases and snowboards to the house. The following day we spent a good 2 hours digging snow, only to give up and pay a man with a digger 20 bucks to do if for us! lazy bastards are we.
The mountains in New Zealand aren't really suitable for hosting a resort because of the crumbly rocks and also the weather can be very crap, so it would either slide or blow off the side. hence the 'resort' is off the mountain and a short car/bus journey gets you to the slopes. Methven is really a farming village that accommodates Mt Hutt staff and visitors to the hill when the snow falls. It's very surreal to see farmers mixed with ski instructors in the bars, but generally speaking there's a local for the farmers, and the rest of the pubs are for the mountain!