Skifields to suit newlyweds and the nearly dead

By COLIN MOORE

On fine winter's day Lake Tekapo is spectacularly beautiful. The glacier-fed lake is azure blue, the Southern Alps sparkle in the distance, and morning frost lingers on the pebbles and grass fronds at the shore, glistening in the sunlight. The crisp air cleans your lungs as you breathe.

When I drove past the lake last winter on the way home from a ski holiday at the Cardrona resort, near Wanaka, I pointed to a foothill of the Two Thumbs Range to the north of the lake and told my children there used to be a skifield there. I doubt they believed me. And when the voice on the telephone last week announced, "Hello, this is Rachel Jelley, I'm from the Roundhill Ski area," I was taken aback.

"There hasn't been a skifield there for years," I said.

"It's back," she said.

"But I skied there once and it is so flat you have to pole yourself," said I.

"Now, c'mon," said Rachel with a chuckle. "It's not that flat."

Yes, Roundhill, the gentlest ski area in New Zealand, is back in business.

Karl Burtscher put a skifield on the hill near Tekapo in 1974. When I skied the hill it was part of the Mt Cook Ski Region that included the Ohau skifield.

As its name implies, Roundhill is a gentle slope but it was mainly lack of snow and ill health that forced Burtscher to close the field in 1990 and sell its chairlift.

And it might have stayed a memory as you pass through Tekapo on the way home from Wanaka except for those crisp Tekapo mornings and advances in snowmaking.

Burtscher's son, Christian, and his daughter and son-in-law, Karoline and Oskar Reider, spotted the same opening - somewhere to ski in the McKenzie Basin and gentle slopes suitable for family groups.

So they installed a T-bar and platter lift, laid a water pipe up to the hill and began snowmaking. They say Roundhill will be up and running for beginners, intermediates, toddlers and seniors on June 23.

The T-bar is the country's longest at 1.2km but the ticket prices are the cheapest at $40 for adults and $14 for children. As befits a family-oriented resort, the emphasis is on having fun. Bumper stickers proclaim: "Roundhill ski area, for the newly wed and the nearly dead."

North of Lake Tekapo, the Mt Dobson field at Fairlie was the cause of a few chuckles this year too, because of a press release the Silver Star field in Canada gave a bunch of visiting New Zealand journalists. It proudly announced that a renowned ski writer had chosen Silver Star as one of the world's top three ski resorts. Another was in Europe and the third was Mount Dobson.

In fairness to the family-owned and operated field renowned for its hospitality and wide, south-facing snow basin, I had one of my best days' skiing there a few years ago. The Dobson road no longer shakes your teeth loose, and this season the field boasts a quad chairlift.

The top five alpine resorts in the South Island begin in Canterbury. Mt Hutt, near Christchurch, is a field that consistently is the first in the country to open. The field has come a long way since I first skied it in 1975 and now has a base lodge of international standard.

Wanaka has been challenging Queenstown as the country's winter-resort capital although the lines have become blurred since the sealing of the Crown Range Rd.

Now the slopes of Cardrona are within easy reach of Queenstown.

Treble Cone, Wanaka's other resort is an aficionado's field that does it its way - superb skiing, great slopes, magnificent view, and to hell with the competition. Just how long its owners can keep it that way remains to be seen but Cardrona and Treble Cone are complementary. That is what makes Wanaka an ideal destination and why, even in the absence of a scheduled air service, it rivals Queenstown.

The queen of the south's complementary fields, the Remarkables and Coronet Peak, have interchangeable, multi-day lift passes. Coronet Peak still deserves its royal reputation. And no resort can beat Queenstown for beauty, ease of getting around, variety of things to do and places to stay and eat.