Winter Down Under Not Quite Underway

Winter is getting underway in the southern hemisphere. On the Snow shows that resorts in Australia are developing a base, though if you click through to resort-specific information, you’ll find that precious little terrain is actually open. Expect things to be underway within two weeks.

Somebody in New Zealand recommended Mt Ruapehu, on North Island. I don’t know if it’s any good–it’s not in the On the Snow database, though oddly enough, there’s a story about it on the site’s front page for the country.

The site for Ruapehu is down at the moment, but take a look at the videos. There’s nothing unusual there. But one of them, in which the camera trails snowboarders down an open field of snow, is encouraging. Here in the northern hemisphere with a tight travel budget, it’s the best I’m going to get for a while.