Snowboarding and other random pictures

I am happy to report that after being employed at a ski field for the better part of three months, dating a ski instructor for the same amount of time, and taking two lessons, I have reached one of my goals for the year.  I can finally say I'm comfortable skiing down some of the blue runs at Treble Cone (which would be considered black runs anywhere else. That mountain be STEEP).


Woohoo!


And, as of Tuesday, I acheived another goal -- I tried snowboarding.


Dave very kindly took time out of his work day up at the Cardrona ski resort where he works to show me how to board.  We went there cause it's a much easier mountain on which to learn anything thanks to its mercifully flat beginners' area and actual green runs (as mentioned above blue runs at Treble Cone = black elsewhere.  Same goes for the green run.  Green at TC = blue anywhere else).


It was a lot of fun, despite the multiple painful and embarassing spills and the inevitable mocking from my oh-so-helpful instructor (anyone who's ever tried to learn a new skill or teach a new skill to a romantic partner knows what I'm talking about). By late afternoon I managed to make it down the oh-so-flat slope once or twice without falling!  Go me!  Dave had to (begrudgingly) admit that I "turned out to be pretty average" after all.  Yay!  Mediocrity!


Though I am devastatingly without a camera at the moment, luckily Dave has one and has been very generous about my borowing it.  So, I have pictures!


Heading up the "magic carpet" (basically like an escalator in the snow).

After one of my many spills.



Still smiling though.  I'm a trouper.

We have motion! Look up Nadine.  Look up! 


I'm planning on taking another lesson on Monday or Tuesday up at Treble Cone, so hopefully I'll be able to actually make it down a run or two by then. 


In the meantime, I'm nursing sore muscles, limping, and groaning like an old lady.


Let's see, what else has been going on lately?


Dave and I went down to Invercargill again last week to watch a Rugby World Cup game between Scotland and Georgia.  It was fun, though expensive and the game itself was rather a snoozefest since not a single try (goal) was scored.  All the points were made thanks to penalty kicks.  Yawn.


Here are some photos.




Some sheep bedecked in the flags of the four nations that played games down in Invercargill.

A dude in a jaunty Scotish cap watches as the national anthems are sung before the match.

Heineken is sponsoring the RWC, so they're the only beer you can buy on the spot.  They come in these awful four packs, with environmentally unfriendly rings from which the beer is hard to extract (especially since they open the cans before selling them to you).  We ended up spending $72 on beer between the two of us.  That's for 12 beers.  Damn it.  As a result, I don't remember much of the second half of the match.

Unflattering shot of moi during the match.  Notice the be-mulleted man to my left (your right)?  He made a point of giving the finger to the TV camera every time it was pointed in his general direction.  Classy.  Also, it was raining, thus the hood.

Have I mentioned that Dave is also a volunteer fireman?  Pretty sweet eh?  Well two Saturdays ago there was an event to hand out plaques and stripes and pins and medals and such to various members of the Wanaka, Luggate and Hawea (three regions near here) fire brigade to recognize their years of service, and I got to go as Dave's date.


Not going to lie, the night was interminibly long what with the pomp and circumstance and the speaches and the awkward conversations.  It was like being at a high school graduation and a wedding where you know nobody all rolled into one.  On the plus side, I got to dress up and go somewhere with a man in uniform (awwwwww yeah!) and there was an open bar.  And you know I availed myself of that.




Me in a dress for the first time in months, and Dave in his fancy fireman suit for the first time ever.




Dave and some fellow brigaderes (not sure if that's a word, but I like it anyway) line up for some official welcome thing.  He's the fourth from the left.

 And I've had a few fun nights out with people from work.  Often I don't have a camera with me, but this particular night I did.


Me and the blondies: Jade, Jenny and Amber at Amber's house.



Amber and I looking as happy as we were (notice the glass).

 And Dave and I went to the old mining town of Arrowtown one day last week too.  He used to work at one of the resorts there and brought me on a little tour. It was quaint.



Me near the waterfall beside the Millbrook Resort.



Very likely the highlight of the week -- This is around where they filmed the Ford of Bruinen scenes in Fellowship of the Ring.  You know, the scene with the horses and the river.  I annoyed Dave with quotes from the movie for a good ten minutes after this ("Give us the halfling She Elf!"  "If you want him, come and claim him!").  Ahhhhh. Now that I look at it though, I think I should have gone another few hundred metres upriver.  Oh well.  Close enough.

And of course, in my jobless state, I've been spending a lot of time with a furry and barky creature.  He's taken to following me around wherever I go during the day on the off-chance that I might bring him for a walk (I do take him out once or twice a day).  Poor Scruff.




Scruffle Ruffle!  Happy to be out on a walk.



Speaking of Scruff, I really should bring him out.  He's been ever so patient all morning. Toodleloo!

Snowed in and robbed

Today, the country ground to a halt. 

Schools were closed.  Roads made impassable. Even a local ski field stayed shut. 

The reason: Snow.  Now, for a Canadian, the paltry amount on the ground was laughably small.  In Wanaka, for instance, we had a dusting of barely two cm coating the grass.  Nonetheless, it crippled most of the country.

I would post a picture here, but I can't.  As you may have read on Facebook, my cameras are now no longer in my posession thanks to some petty thief (or thieves) that decided to pay my apartment a visit the other night.

It is partly my fault. After having locked myself out of the house once, and learning that many people around time leave their doors unlocked cause it's such a safe town, I had grown complacent about securing the door. Evidently, Friday evening was one of the unfortunate times I neglected to turn the key on my way out, and some douchenozzle(s) benefitted from my negligence.

Along with my cameras, the stellar human being(s) also took my external hard drive, my e-reader, i-pod, a DVD collection (Buffy the Vampire Slayer, season 5), some cash, (ironically) a bible, and, most devastatingly, my passport.

Ugh.

I'm hopeful that my travel insurance will cover at least some of the taken items, and there's not much I can do now after the fact. It was an expensive lesson that, despite living in a small, safe town where many people don't lock their doors, I should do so nonetheless.  So now, with only a short month to go I have to sort out my documents.  It's especially annoying since without a passport, I can't book any flights, and therefore can't really plan my life. 

Any suggestions would be appreciated.  Nay, invited.

Working in Wanaka

Treble Cone has been open and operational for nearly three weeks now, though it feels like I’ve been working there much longer.  Well, I guess technically I have been under TC’s employment for nearly two months, but have only really been actually employed (as in used…and paid) since mid-July.

So what do my days look like?  Well, for one thing they start off pretty dark.

I wake up at 6:30 or so and walk in the dark to the meeting spot about 400m down the road from my place.  At about 7:05, a convoy of vans of the mini and mega variety pull up and I and the other staffers living in the area pile in.  We finish off “the loop” of pick up points, then make our way along the side of Lake Wanaka to the base of the mountain some 15 minutes away. From there, it’s another 7 km of zig-zagging narrow dirt road with dizzying drops on one side up to the TC base building.

I’m not going to lie; the first few times I made the climb I was frankly terrified.  It’s amazing what can become everyday and commonplace after a while.

This view, however, has not become either of those things:

It goes a long way to helping wake me up when I stumble out of the warm van into the cold, mountain winter air at 7:45.  You see, in town, the temperature usually sits in the high-single digits and even sometimes the low double-digits.  On the mountain however, where the base building sits at some 1200 metres above sea level, it’s considerably colder.

It’s not so bad on the days I work inside selling lift passes, lessons and rental gear – there I’m warm and protected from the elements. On the days I’m outside working the gates however, it’s less pleasant. For eight hours I stand in the cold armed with an iPad to make sure punters are making their way through our automatic gate OK, and to do crowd control.  It’s rather mind- and toe-numbing.  I’ve actually developed chilblains thanks to those shifts.  For the (lucky) uninitiated, chilblains are basically itchy, swollen, painful toe ulcers.  Yum!

At least on those days, I’m guaranteed a decent shift.  On ticketing days I often finish up at one or two in the afternoon, which usually means waiting around a few hours for staff transport down the mountain or hitchhiking down with some of the customers.

Naturally, on those days I can take advantage of the big snowy mountain and my free lift pass, but given that I’ve had exactly one lesson in my life some twenty years ago (man I’m old), and that the hills I’ve skied before were of the small, docile variety, I’m reluctant.

Treble Cone, you must understand, is a great mountain for the confident, skilled skier or boarder, but a daunting one for anyone learning.  It’s big.  It’s steep. Its only “green” run is narrow with hairpin turns and big drops running alongside it.  I overheard an instructor refer to it as the “beginner’s cliffs of doom.”  Charming.

I’ve been spending most of my time on the learners’ slope with the kids and the people who have never been on snow before.  Sigh.

But I’m happy to report that, thanks to the (uncharacteristically) patient tutelage of Dave, a ski instructor I’ve been seeing, I made it down the mountain without killing myself or even crying today! Huzzah!



Base building




Staff waiting for transport at the end of the day.





Dave by the lake.



Lake Wanaka at sunset

My main man, Scruff.

Finally! Snow on the mountains!

A full two and a half weeks after Treble Cone was set to open, we're still shut.

While at first the problem was a complete lack of snow, over the past few days we've been dumped on and there's a healthy 70cm of base on the mountain, 40cm of which fell in the past 24 hours.  This means that the road up the mountain was impassable this a.m. and there's an extreme risk of avalanche up there. 

So closed we remain.  Hopefully though, tomorrow will be better and we’ll be able to get up there and get working and skiing.

You'd think that having had so much time off would have inspired me to write tons.  Sadly, a lack of motivation and a surplus of lethargy kicked in and I've been woefully unproductive of late.

Here are a few pictures of some of the things I’ve been up to.

Snow as seen from town.

Went for a walk to a river by a sheep station near town.

Last week TC organized a walk to the Rob Roy Glacier which is an hour's drive and two hour hike from Wanaka.  There were 57 of us on the walk I believe.  Here's a suspended bridge along the track.

The Rob Roy Glacier -- at the bottom you can see an avalanche.  It was pretty cool.

This awesome fella is a kea, NZ's mountain parrot.  These guys are not shy and are super smart and curious.  They've been known to steal people's boots and bags and anything they can get their talons or beaks on.  There are even some that have learned how to open and close doors by watching people do it, and have locked trampers inside huts and outhouses for kicks. Cheeky buggers. 

My coworkers Aurora, Kirsten, Rick and me near the end of the track.

Pretty!

Sadly, I don't have any photos of my disastrous mountain biking expedition (Not only was I ridiculously slow, but I fell in some mud not 10 metres from the end of the track), the awesome banana cake I made last week, or of Scruff, the dog I've been taking on walks almost daily.

Waiting for the snow

I never thought I’d be complaining about a warmer-than-average winter, but here I am, doing just that.

It’s now nearly three weeks into this New Zealand winter and there is zero snow on the ground.  This usually wouldn’t bother me, but my (very modest) livelihood depends on the white stuff for the next few months.

Treble Cone is supposed to open on Thursday, but that’s looking extremely unlikely at this point, which is very disappointing for a few reasons.  For one thing, it means I am going to be very broke very soon L. For another, after a few days of training, and having met my excellent colleagues, I’ve been looking forward to getting to work.

And of course, it will be fun to get out on the slopes – though after seeing the steepness of the mountain, my lack of experience and skills is rather worrying. Luckily, I get discounted lessons, and I intend to take advantage of that.

Other than training, I haven’t been very busy since I got back to Wanaka.  Before moving into my new home, (woot!) I spent a lot of time hanging out at a hostel watching movies, doing crossword puzzles and crocheting. I also did a bit of walking, trolled the op shops (second hand shops) for much-needed warm clothing, and watched a friend jump out of a plane (I was almost tempted to join him…almost).

I also went on an impromptu trip to Queenstown where I played Frisbee golf, ate a Furgburger, attempted to climb the very steep hill near town (gave up about a third of the way up), and earned a $25 drinks tab at a bar just for having a tattoo (woo hoo!).

Now I have two more days of training then hopefully I’ll start work.  Fingers crossed!

My new room.

My new lounge.

Beau lands after his skydive.

My drinks voucher.

I just threw a frisbee...you just can't see it.

Airline travel woes

Here is how the last 36 hours were supposed to go:

Sunday morning: wake up refreshed and spring out of bed.  Eat breakfast. Say tearful goodbyes to friends in Mount Manganui. Go toTauranga and attend mom and Roger's BBQ via Skype. 

Sunday afternoon: Take bus to Auckland and find way via shuttle to airport.

Sunday night: sleep in airport between 9:00 and 5:00 a.m.

Monday morning: take 7:00 a.m. flight to Queenstown, arrive by 9:00 then make my way to Wanaka via shuttle two hours later.

Monday afternoon.  Take nap,

Monday night: get organized for my first day of training (tomorrow)

Instead, this is what really happened

Sunday morning: Woke up groggy and sleep deprived after spending most of the night stressing about life in general. Eat breakfast. Say tearful goodbyes to friends in Mount Manganui. Go toTauranga and attend mom and Roger's BBQ via Skype.  (at least that part was good)

Sunday afternoon: Took bus to Manukau, spent two hours wandering around a mall with about 20 kg attached to my back, in desperation went to see a movie just to kill time.  On leaving the theatre, I discovered that I didn't know how to get to the shuttle pick up anymore (the mall halls were all blocked).  Luckily a nice couple saw me looking confused and offered to drive me -- all the way to the airport no less!  Nice!  At this point I thought my luck was running high.

Sunday night: slept in airport on and off between 1 and 4 a.m. Woke up groggy and ill tempered.

Monday morning:  checked into my flight at 5:30 a.m., went to gate, was told at 6:55 that said flight is cancelled.  Oh, and the next flight out is fully booked!  So I have to either wait until Tuesday to fly out (if the weather improves, of course) or take a flight to Christchurch and then be bused 8 hours to Queenstown.  I opted for the second option so I could make it to Wanaka in time for training at 9:00 tomorrow morning.  I was assured that I shoudl have no problems getting to Wanaka tonight cause the bus was going to go through Wanaka on its way to Queenstown.  "Great!"  I thought.
Flew to Christchurch. Found out that bus does not, in fact, go via Wanaka.  But at least there's a shuttle service.  "That;s fine!" I thought.

Monday afternoon: Took 8-hour bus ride to Queenstown with an annoying tour group from China who ate smelly sushi, talked super loud, chewed with their mouths open and farted most of the way.  Found out on arrival that -- Surprise! -- no buses are running tonight! So not only am I stuck in Queenstown, I am operating on approximately 6 hours of sleep over the past 48, and I am also going to be missing my first day of training after all. I nearly started to cry when I found out.

I am sooooo mad.  I wish I'd just decided this morning to wait until tomorrow's flight and I could have had a relaxing day in Auckland (I think they were goign to put me up in a hotel had I stayed).  Instead I'm so tired that I am having trouble focusing on anything, I'm ultra bitchy, and all for nothing -- My next training day isn't until Friday, so there's really no reason for me to be here yet.

Sorry for the whine.  I just needed to vent and the tought of actually talking to a human being right now is awful.

A plan for my last four months...

I’m currently in Wanaka, my favourite town in the country, and I just found out yesterday that I got a job at one of the ski hills here, which I’m really excited about.  Apparently they had over 1200 applicants for only 100 positions, so I’m feeling pretty proud to have gotten it.  From the end of June ‘til the end of August, I’ll be selling tickets and working the gates – nothing too revolutionary, but it should be fun cause I’ll be working with people from all over the world, and I get a free season’s pass and heaps of discounts around town.  Yay!

After that, I’ll only have about a week or two left on my working holiday visa (where have eight months gone???), which kind of sucks.  I’m torn, cause the uncertainty of what I was doing was both exhilarating and terrifying.  To have the rest of my official time here mapped out is kind of comforting, yet sad.

As for beyond September, I have some decisions to make.  I can get a tourist visa which will allow me stay here another three months, but I won’t be able to work, so any money I have left, will be drained away, especially since the Rugby World Cup is taking place in NZ during September and October, and as a result, hostels will likely balloon from about $25 a night to nearly $60 a night (yikes!). 

Or, I could head home for a few months where I could maybe work and make some money in preparation for school here in January.  But that means two winters in a row…not a fun prospect.

And then there’s the question of what to do with the car.  Gandalf has been good to me, but as I’ve mentioned before, he needs a new timing belt which will likely cost me $800-$1000, and really, I don’t really need a car anymore if I’m staying in one place for the foreseeable future.  My options are to either sell Gandalf cheap now, or fix him up  and sell him at a better price later (people reckon that before the World Cup lots of tourists will be in the market for cheap cars).

So many things to think about.

For now though, I have two weeks to kill before training starts for work, and I’d rather not spend them here.  So, I think I’ll head back up north to visit some of the old Blenheim crew – some of them are up in Tauranga on the North Island and others are still in Blenheim.  I’m going to leave Gandalf parked here in Wanaka and make my way by share rides and buses (cheaper and less stressful than driving a car in need of a new timing belt), and maybe even fly back (how extravagant of me!).