Wanaka: The white stuff

A competitor charges downhill during the RipCurl Heli Challenge. Snow Park is the hemisphere's first all-mountain freestyle resort. Photo / Chris O'Connell

Things change when you don't go skiing for several years. Not only do you discover that your technique - learned as a youngster on the now prehistoric straight-edged skis - is decades out of date, but towns servicing the Kiwi number eight wire brand of skiing have transformed into fully fledged winter sporting wonderlands.

Wanaka, once a hick town in the backblocks of Central Otago with a THC hotel and precious little else, is today fair bursting with quaint schist buildings housing top-notch accommodation, as well as eateries, wineries, a hot pool resort, and roaring log fires at every turn.

It's not new that Wanaka has been coming up as a resort town for several years (you're hardly undiscovered when a Canadian country music megastar builds a little $30 million getaway in the nearby Motatapu Valley). But what complements the jaw-droppingly beautiful natural landscape these days is a full-service alpine playground, where decisions about how you will play on the white stuff - and which good local pinot you'll unwind with later in front of said roaring fire - are the only priorities in life.

Because play you can. There are four "ski fields", for want of a better term, in the Wanaka surrounds. Each offers a completely different set of activities and challenges, and appeals to its own demographic. In short, there's something for everyone.

Cardrona, in the Cardrona Valley, is the family affair. Kindly runs encourage beginners, although there is enough to keep the intermediate entertained. With four kids centres catering for three-month-olds upwards this field has turned childcare into an art form.

I decided to take advantage of the awaiting army of user-friendly instructors and afix my feet to a snowboard for the first time. At the end of the two-hour session my infinitely patient young Australian instructor Llewelyn admitted that we had both just done our first snowboarding lesson. It has to be said he came out of it looking better than I did.

On the other side of the valley lies Snow Farm, New Zealand's only cross-country ski area. Developed by entrepreneurial local farming family the Lees, it boasts 50km of groomed trails covered with artificially made snow. Cross-country skiing, the chosen sport of our gung ho prime minister (a season pass holder at Snow Farm), holds appeal for the more mature snowsport enthusiast.

Having given it a go I have new respect for my elders. Imagine jogging on skis wearing Tour de France-esque lycra.

Technique is everything, unless you want to make life very hard for yourself. But picture shooshing along whitened trails under a powder blue sky, stopping to rest in front of the fire at one of the accommodation huts on the field.