August typically brings the deepest snow base of the season and the longer days draw the sun bunnies out on the slopes. School holidays are over but there are still lots of ski holiday makers about, the north hemisphere ski teams arrive for their annual pre-season training, the FIS, inter-field races and Winter Classic kick off and the, now annual, Audi Quattro Winter Games.

The school holidays are always a busy time in the Southern Lakes. Queues on the mountain look like queues in the seventies, though due to fast moving, high capacity lifts, they fortunately move a lot more quickly.

Whenever it snows at this time of year we leap to the happy conclusion that it’s going to be a good, early ski season. The excitement is fuelled by our Facebook and Instagram feeds chocker with images of the white-blanketed Wakatipu and Wanaka basins and the ski field posts of shovels and yardsticks. We try to remember when our planks were last tuned, contemplate the ski-worthiness of our thighs and recall that our long-serving gloves disintegrated during the snow extravaganza in September last year.

Cow Lane in Queenstown is to receive a makeover with a plan to adorn the walls with the creative vision of local artists. We love public art and believe the visual splendours of Queenstown should be about more than just the views.