Watch a video of Maniototo children ice skating on the frozen Idaburn Dam
Successive frosts mean more chance of curling or skating on natural ice - an experience to be savoured, say Central Otago ice sports buffs, who keep their fingers crossed for a hard winter.
Skaters have already been making the most of the ice covering the Lower Manorburn dam near Alexandra and the Idaburn dam near Oturehua, although they are quick to point out that anyone venturing on to the ice does so at their own risk.
"There's no safety gear out there at Manorburn any more, so people need to be careful and to make sure the ice is thick enough to hold them, " Manorburn Curling Club ice master Bert Kemp said this week.
He regularly measures the thickness of the ice, which needed to be about 12cm thick before the dam could host a bonspiel. This season it had already reached 12cm but then melted. Skaters needed a minimum of at least 6cm of ice.
Alexandra woman Trish Morris is the second generation of her family to skate at Manorburn.
This week the ice was covered by a layer of snow, but usually the serene dam was covered with "beautiful black ice - you can see the grass and weeds underneath", Mrs Morris said.
"There's only a handful of people that come skating on the dam now, but I look forward to it every year. I always check first, of course, with someone I trust, about how deep the ice is," she said.
Hundreds of people used to skate at the Manorburn 20 or 30 years ago, she said.
