September this year I went up to Central Otago for a trip of a life time. This was the annual Ice Dive at the Remarkables in Queenstown. Nutty you say? Actually this is one of the only places in the world where you can do this (bar the poles of course). So I jumped at this chance as anyone would.
Saturday September 8 was a beautiful sunny day. It was all we could ask for as we headed up the hill to the Remarkables skifield. After some hard work carrying the gear (think 20 tanks + personal gear) to the snowcat that had kindly positioned itself halfway up the field and not at the bottom as one would expect, we walked the rest of the way up the field to Lake Alta.
Lake Alta is positioned at 1800 metres above sea level and so coming from Dunedin the day before some of us were fair out of breath, hot, and ready to take the plunge. The water looked so inviting..... but not for long.
After a few rules were explained to us (like stay attached to your rope ..John) we were ready to hit the water. This is easier said than done. Given that the water was 2C (about 39F--sorry not to good on non metric except pints :) ) I was wearing a few layers under my wet suit ( the way a real man does an ice dive-- none of these dry suit thingies). The ice was 70 cm thick and was layered due to snow melting and refreezing (you can see this in one of the photos).
To sum it up. I got two 20 minute dives in and had one of the most experiences in my life. To try and explain what it was like I would have to say that is was like floating in space. It was dark yet I could see 70 metres due to the ambient light streaming down. I had to try walking upside down which wasn't easy and I managed to crack my head a few times on the ice. There were some huge rocks that had fallen into the lack which were fun to swim on and around. Totally awesome!
One more thing for those North American visitors to this page. If you see an advert on TV for Honda CRVs (a type of 4WD) one of these was filmed at this lake (but not when we were there). Apparantly they got 12 extras to run across the snow and into the lake, but only in their togs! They got paid US$5000 each for it. Now I think I would have been keen. What does this have to do with a car I ask?