Part one: pre-frost

It all began on Thursday 18 June. I went in to Twizel for my daily coffee at 11.30 or so, and by 12.30 when I came out, the predicted snowfall had started. Although I've seen snow showers many times before, I remember noting how big the individual flakes were this time. Huge, soft, wet fairy-tale jobs. At this stage, the snow was just beginning to stay on the ground, but it wasn’t at all thick.

Photos
Left: the snow just beginning
Right: more or less the same view, days later

On Friday (19/6) morning, we woke to find that it had snowed very heavily during the night. Now it really was thick on the ground (about 20-30 cm, although—unusually—significantly more in Twizel, only 3 km from the farm), but very soft and easy to walk through, and would have been easy to drive through too, though neither of us did that day. A grader came in to clear the shop carpark, and despite the snow we still had a regular stream of customers, and the skeleton staff were kept busy(ish). Three farm employees from Europe, who are more used to such things, walked in from Twizel,and after some chores built half an igloo (by compressing the snow into plastic bins and upending it so a brick of compressed snowy ice came out), but gave up after a couple of hours! I think it was a bigger job than they'd

realised.

It snowed all day, quite heavily and steadily.There were lots of 'Ooh, look at it now' moments!

Photos
Page three: Friday 19. Cars parked near the house: Margaret's closest, and mine next.
Page four: Afternoon,Friday 19. Top: View from my bedroom window. Ohau Canal in middle distance. Bottom: Barbecue on the deck, anyone? No, perhaps not...

Saturday 20: all day inside again.

Photos
Page six: Saturday 20. View from the back door
Page seven: Saturday 20. Two views of the farm

Next morning (Sunday 21) was sunny and clear. We'd been stuck inside since it started three days earlier, and as food supplies were depleting, the need to get into town became more pressing. Not that I mean to over-dramatise: we could have survived for many days if we'd really had to, but we were running out of basic things like bread and fresh meat--and some serious necessities like wine, and a big 'catch-up' grocery shop would definitely be nice! We took Margaret's car (4WD--handy) into Twizel for that, and to have a look-around. Lots of photos, some of which you can see here.

My car was more snowed-in, and it wasn't for a week since the snow began that I found the energy to dig it out!

Photos Next few pages: around Twizel, Sunday 21
Below: Typical 'tree scene'
Right, page nine: standard Twizel house, school playground

Photos
left, top: on our house at HCS, snow had started melting off the roof then re-froze overnight
left, bottom: another typical 'trees in the snow' picture
above: the following day, there was hoar frost growing on the icicles