Hello kids
Well, i've been a slack bastard, and have blogged for a while (make that a long time). But due to popular demand (ie NYE WHINGING LIKE A BITCH), this will be a compendium of what i've been up to for the last little while.
Well, the big event was most certainly my trip to NZ; I went for 6 days with Jess, Sarah and Paul. We jetted off to Christchurch at 5:45 on Friday afternoon, and we arrived at 11 o'clock or so in Christchurch. It was a bit of a temperature shock, as we left at 20 degrees and arrived at 2 degrees :P. Luckily we were all rugged up, but it was still a bit nippy.
We all bundled into a taxi, (a Nissan Cefiro - DOOORIFTO), and headed off to our Hostel - the base back packers. Now, we had been told that we would probably get a dorm to our selves, since there was 4 of us, but when we got up to our room and turned on the light, there was alread someone asleep. We quickly turned out the light, and I got into bed in my clothes - i couldnt be stuffed trying to change in the dark. Our flight the next morning was at 8:30 am, so we woke up at 6:30, (still dark), and fumbled around getting changed and packing bags up. It might just be me, but its a little disconcerting staying a night in a hotel room that you havent really seen. Anyway - we got outside and jumped into another taxi (always good to prebook), and got to christchurch airport, where we went through a really really lax security check, and hopped on a plane to Queenstown.
The flight was absolutely spectacular; we flew over the ski fields that we'd be later skiing on, and the plane had to go fairly low due to the approach - so we got a wonderful view. We landed, and made our way to the Kiwi Discovery bus (the group we'd organised this trip with), and headed off to our hotel. We were sitting in the bus driving through the town, and we started to wonder where abouts our hotel was. We left queenstown and started going up a fairly steep hill; not a good sign. We kept going for a little while, and finally got to our hotel - the aspen on queen town. We went to reception, but since we were still fairly early (about 10:30 ish by this time), our room wasnt ready, so we put our bags in the ski locker, and headed down to Queenstown for a looksee and to get some grocerys.
Queenstown is a funny place, It has a Coronation Drive (better traffic than ours), and all sorts of streets that had very familiar names; Its also
very touristy (as you'd expect), and therefore, fairly expensive. We grabbed some lunch, and then went to the Kiwi Discovery (KD) shop to get our clothes and ski's and stuff, and to book our next days ski bus to Coronet. We took the clothes with us, and the ski's and boots were delivered to our hotel later that night. It was grocery shopping time then, and we headed off to the alpine supermarket to get some chow. High on the list was orange juice (to go with the bottle of smirnoff blue (50%) we grabbed on the way over, and some stuff to take for lunches to the ski fields.
After this, we grabbed a taxi back to the hotel (NZ$9 which isnt much split between 4), and went down to our room. The room was awesome; we had a fairly big lounge area, and a kitchen with microwave , stove, dishwasher (yay) and a biggish fridge. The girls had the double bed, and paul and I got a room with two singles - it had its own fridge and heater. The bathrooms were a bit wierd though, they had a big wall length mirror, which meant showering was a bit of a confronting exercise.
That night, we stayed at the hotel, played some cards, and had some drinks, and made our lunches for the next day.
On Sunday morning, we woke up at 6:00, and got ready for a days skiing - the bus met us at 7:30 at reception, and we had a ~1 hr trip to Coronet Peak. While waiting for the bus, we met another girl called Sunny, who was on a snowboarding trip with her parents. She was from brissie also, and is studying at Griffith. The bus then arrived, so we loaded our gear, and off we went. As the bus wound its way up the hill, we started to see little bits of snow, then more and more; it was very exciting. Once we got up to the resort, we grabbed our ski passes, and put on our ski's. Jess Paul and Sarah headed off to start skiing (they had done it before), and I hung around and waited for my lesson to start. The first lesson was good, we learned how to stop and turn, which were very handy skills to have. After that lesson, we met up for lunch, and then I had my second lesson - more stopping and turning, but also different ways to turn, and going down some steeper hills. After this, we had night skiing. I wasnt very confident, and since it tends to get icy, i stuck to the learner slope and just practiced turning and slowing down (very important stuff), while the others did the main slope again. They did this for about an hour, and then they came to meet me. Paul and Sarah went off to do the big slope again, and Jess and I had a hot chocolate and some chips. We ran into Sunny, so we had a chat, and invited her round for drinks later on in the week.
Paul and Sarah came and joined us after a while, and we sat and waited for the bus. It came, and we went back to the hotel. That night, we went up to the main building of the hotel, and had a few drinks, and played more cards.
The next morning, we were up at the same time, and off to the Remarkables. It was a bit of a longer drive, but was certainly worth it - It was our favourite ski field. In the morning, I had another lesson, and that included going down one of the green slopes; This meant that I was able to keep up with the other guys that after noon, which was really good, as i'd been feeling a bit left out up till then. We skiied around some more, and then packed up when the bus arrived. That night was more drinking and cards, but this time with some Gilmore Girls for Paul and Sarah. strange strange people.
The third day, we went up to Cardrona, which was a bigger ski field about 2 hrs out from Queenstown. We got up there, and it was a whiteout. That was fairly scary, as it got to the stage that I couldnt work out what was the ground and what was a fairly sheer drop. Jess managed to run into the wall, due to the white out, and we managed to get down a fairly steep hill without being able to discern distance; very scary, so Jess and I stopped halfway down at the Pizza Cafe, while Paul and Sarah (darn their working eyes) continued the whole way down. Jess and I had some pizza, and waited for it to clear. This took about 30 min, and from then on, it was beautiful weather. I got some fairly cool air during one of the runs (woo) and only took a few small stacks, basically me falling over sideways trying to stop. We managed to do all of the green runs a few times, and then it was time to head back. That night, well you guessed it, more drinking and cards, but CSI was on, so Jess and I watched that, while Paul and Sarah went to bed.
The fourth (and our last) day of Skiing was at the remarkables again, because we liked it so much the first time. The bus trip took a fair bit longer that time, cause we got snowed on - very cool, but it got a bit boring after a while. The skiing was very good, but it was really windy, and we had sleet - think small hail smacking you in the face - ah well, it was worth it. It was this day that Jess managed to cop a Japanese snowboarder to the head (heh) too, she was ok, but it was a fairly impressive crash. That night we went to Pizza Hut for dinner in Queenstown (oh yeah.. works meal :P:P) and went drinking at one of the pubs. We played the game of "whoever bought the round, chose the round) and ended up drinking cocktails, and a completely evil mix of sake and vodka (mummy it burns). We went to one of the corner stores to pick up some bread and softdrink, and I managed to find a bottle of red bull concentrate (it was called double bull, but it was the same stuff) We then headed back up to the hotel, and went and found Sunny. The rest of the night involved getting drunk on vodka and red bull, and playing cards.
In the morning, we packed our bags, and caught the bus to the airport; we were there at the perfect time - meaning that we had to run to get on our plane :P - fun fun, but at least there was no waiting round at Queenstown. We had a while to kill at Christchurch though, which involved some air hockey (Victory to Ken!) and buying a new wallet, and some bling for Rhia.
It was then time for the trip back to Brisvegas, and the flight was fairly un-eventful. We got through the security check, grabbed our duty free alcohol (you know i wouldnt forget something like that), and that was that.
I had a great time, and would recommend it to anyone - I reckon there will be a bit of skiing next year (hopefully)
Hrm.. now what other stuff is new - not that much really - Just been doing uni and work - fairly mind numbing, but you get that i guess. There is another addition to the sydney party, with ascian getting a job with Honeywell (congrats :D), which is always good - the more friends down there the better.
Well, this was a monster post, and congrats if you got to the end.
Kenz0r signing off
