of chocolate uggs

I’ve been wanting a pair of ugg boots for a while now, especially so for the New Zealand trip. Sadly, they were either: a) too expensive, b) too ugly, or c) really too ugly – which meant that I didn’t have any uggs to keep my toes toasty warm. >_< Bah.

New Zealand, I thought, would be great for ugg boots since it’s Sheepland (for those who don’t know, but to every one New Zealander, there’s 10 sheep). It was, but it wasn’t. The prices weren’t all that cheap and some of the wool I felt wasn’t as soft and warm (a bit too synthetic) as it should be.

There was this one pair, however, in Wanaka that passed all my stringent standards *sic*… but it was NZ$94, which Ram thought was just too expensive. I left the shop pouting cuz I ended up not buying it and when I got home to cold, cold tiled floors I regretted my decision and now REALLY wanted some uggs.

Somehow I managed to find the company that made those boots (I wasn’t even lookin for them! O_O), found the exact pair I tried on, and bought them without batting an eye. $65 for uggs! FTW! (includes postage and handling)

Ordered on Monday and I was expecting them to come in about 2 weeks time…. but they came on FRIDAY!!!! Oh lordy, I was sooooo happy.

They are little heavens for my feet ^_^

~**~

So there was a Lindt factory sale thingy…

I’m still eating the chocolates I got a week later ^_________________^

of snowboarding and the 5-day tour

A total of 18 people went to Sheepland New Zealand, specifically Queenstown, to snowboard *cough*or ski*cough*. Most of us endured a 2-hour wait at Christchurch Airport as paperwork had to be filled in for our vehicles. The 6-hour drive meant that we didn’t get to Coronet View Apartments til 22:30ish. I think we’re all in agreement that next time we’ll fork out the extra 180 or so bucks to fly to Queenstown. =P

Coronet View Apartments was such a great accommodation. It was the little things: the nice shampoo (none of those dodgy, cheap ones… it was Fructience), the towels, electric blankets, condiments, tea, coffee… oh lordy, the list goes on!! Not to mention the beaut view:

I was so nervous and filled with trepidation on the first day of snowboarding. What if I had forgotten everything? What if I manage to break something? Ugh… But it wasn’t so bad. I think I improved quite a bit from last season. I got some really helpful tips and tricks from Rowan (I can still hear “BEND YOUR KNEES!!! LOOK where you’re going!!!” lol), Ram, Nogz, Duy, and Dly. By the end of the third day, I was able to link turns the majority of the time. They weren’t perfect links, but it felt so good being able to do them! I also amassed a whole bunch of bruises on my knees and bum (mainly near the tailbone). Charlotte and I compared our knee bruises on the 2nd or 3rd day and she kicked my butt – hers were huuuuge, on both knees too! hehe

It was going so well… The Big Easy is such a great beginners’ run. After a while, you just know where and when to turn, where it’s icy (and it got daym’ed icy by the end of the 3rd day), what the terrain is basically. And then, we went to the Remarkables. Some people took a day off ‘cuz four days straight of snowboarding was a bit much. I wanted to take a day off too, but I thought “why not, I’m here anyways, I might as well”. I think I should have taken the day off.

I wish I could have said I finished the season with a bang, that I could link turns confidently, that next season, I’ll be properly ready to do blue runs. Okay, at least do the green runs faster =P … but I can’t. I started to hate the Turquoise green run @ the Remarkables. I hated the fact that there were too many people on the runs, not just n00bs, but experienced skiiers/snowboarders heading to the terrain park or the chairlifts to the other peak of the mountain.

I hated that it was icy, that the terrain was unpredictable, that it had traverses, and that by the end of the day, I couldn’t even see the terrain – it was a total white-out. To make matters worse, on my last day on the slopes, it snowed. Visibility was pretty much nil, it was cold on the chairlifts. I hated the fact that I couldn’t get over my fear of stacking it (had that dreaded feeling that one more bad stack and I was gonna break something). I was tired, I was sore, it hurt to even sit down, I couldn’t see, my nose was running….and then I began to PMS. -_-#

Oh Lordy, I was a mess on that last day. (I know I was being a big sulk). Thank goodness for Helen and Wenjai. We called it quits after a few runs and chilled out in the cafeteria. Kea’s turned up outside and Helen and I chased them around (just a bit!), trying to get a good photo of their underside wing.

The Remarkables was excellent for one thing though: using our snowboards to toboggan down to the car park. That was incredibly fun. I think it really made my day after having a crap time on the slopes.

We had to fit snow-chains onto our cars on the way up and had left them on for the trip back home. We took it easy on the way down – a few were grateful for the fact we had a bus in front to also slow us down. Out of the blue, we heard Alan quietly say over the CB: “Guys, be careful going down okay? We spun out and almost died.”

Later, Ruby told me what had happened: one of their back wheels hit a patch of ice and threw them into a 270-degree spin - Wenjai, who was facing the wall, ended up looking over the cliff-edge. They had to drive all the way back up to do a u-turn.

It was chilling to hear their re-encounter of the event and they were visibly still a bit shaken up about it – understandably so. It was terrifying just to hear them talk about it.

I think it was on the third day that Rowan hurt himself. He had spotted me at the top of the Big Easy and the nose of his board hit a drift or something. He fell and tore a ligament in his left shoulder >_< On the same day, Deelai fell really heavily on his knee and it swelled up like a balloon - it hurt like hell as well. It was kinda funny watchin him tryin to protect it from people nearby waving their hands around or slapping him in jest. =P

Charlotte had the same injury done to her right shoulder on her last day =T Poor gurl had to be stretchered down.

Mmm, just fast-tracking... Here are some of my random photos from the first half of the trip:

Charlotte, Nogz, Ram, and I left Queenstown on a crisp Thursday morning, farewelled by a glorious sight:

Stopped rather non-briefly at Lake Te Anau (got stuck feeding the ducks) and the info center.

We also stopped at Eglinton Valley (which I thought looked a LOT like Rohain in LOTR – but Ram said Rohain was more desolate looking). This is also where Nogz needed to relieve himself (and did so, much to Charlotte’s chagrin). We took our first jumping shots here, which was taken by Char’s camera… but which is now on Ash’s laptop =P

Going on the recommendations of the lady @ the info center in Te Anau, we stopped by Mirror Lakes and literally ran through it ‘cuz we spent too much time with the ducks and needed to make the last cruise @ 13:30 for the Milford Sounds tour.

Thankfully, we arrived @ the wharf with enough time to dawdle about and lunch on our egg and mayo sandwiches (washed down with shots of coke – cuz we had no cups… only 100 plastic shot glasses =P). Milford Sounds, we learnt, is really a fiord as it was created by a glacier many eons ago happily bulldozing through it. I’ve forgotten what the dude said what a “sounds” is, but WordWeb sez it’s a “large ocean inlet or deep bay”. Either way, it was so pretty and awesome in its hulking height (does that work grammatically? O_Oa)

On our way back to Te Anau (that’s where we were staying overnight), we dropped by Mirror Lakes Ram raced the setting sun to get us for a few more photos of Mirror Lakes. We managed to get there… but in my hurried state, I didn’t make sure Ram had a good grip on his camera – and Ram thought I was still holding onto it… and his camera dropped. I felt so bad and very much responsible. He picked it up and there was a merry tinkle that drove an icy stab into both Ram and my heart.

There were lots of words said. Words I rather not have here.

“Why are you guys still here?” Ram almost snarled. “Go… GO! I rushed here so you guys could take photos!” Don’t make it all for naught was the unspoken plea. How could I take photos while he can’t? I compiled anyway, feeling like a coward and so very guilty, and shot over my shoulder as I ran, “Maybe it’s just the UV filter…”

Ram had to prise the lens cover open to find out the extent of the damage. This pretty much says it all:

The next day, we got stuck in traffic…

… and in Cardrona, we went passed the Bra Fence. The boys were too embarrassed and so stayed in the car while Charlotte and I ran across the road to take photos. It was longer than we both thought it would be. Some bras look like they’ve been there for … well… a very long time. The colours had washed out, the weather wasn’t kind to them – tugging and tearing the material. We did notice one thing though: they were all relatively big cups… like D’s… O_O I got cheerfully beeped at while I was there =P

Wanaka sports a Puzzling World place. We did the maze challenge (girls vs. boys) *grumbles* the boys won *shakes fist* and went into the Illusions Room, which was quite fun. But the slanty room disorientated me so much that I felt ill. I feel lop-sided just thinking about it -_-

Lake Wanaka’s so pretty at sunset…

Frost is also pretty ^_^ Was taken by a snow-chain fitting area… or a rest area =P they all looked the same to me. This reminds me of a fluffy caterpillar’s mid-section.

I love NZ’s signs. They’re so much more informative than ours… once you get use to the huuuuuge black exclamation marks on reflective orange, diamond-shaped signs… and the red encircled cross with blue background (which was actually “no stopping”, which frequented alavanche-proned areas). And some of them were pretty funny ^_^ hehe

Stopped at Knights Point Lookout for a stretch…

And then went on to some hiking on Fox Glacier. Charlotte decided not to do the 4hr hike because her arm was still pretty sore. I was a bit worried cuz four hours is a long time to wait and felt a bit guilty that she wouldn’t experience the glacier hike, but we would. After some strenuous climbing and grabbing onto chains firmly bolted to the cliff-face, I was kinda glad she didn’t come – it would have been really tough with just one arm and hurt her shoulder lots for the climbing bits >_<

 

On our second last day, we went to Hanmer Springs for its thermal spa/pool, but dropped by Greymouth for a tour at Monteith’s brewery. It was pretty cool… we got to (re)learn about the beer making process…

Got to do some beer-tasting…

And Ram came appropriately dressed.

We were pretty much running late to Hanmer Springs. A bit thankful that it closes at 9pm… And then it started to snow… rather heavily. I dunno if you can tell from the photo, but a couple centimeters of snow was built up rather quickly. It was scary, but exhilarating. We passed a van driven by a Jamaican who didn’t have any snowchains and was losing traction tryin to get up the mountain. I hope he made it to whereever he was going. The snow delayed us a while, but somehow we managed to check into our cabins and race out to the pools with half an hour to spare.

The sulphur pool was great, a nice, eggy 40 degrees. This poor kid threw up near the toilets ‘cuz the smell got to him I think. Reckon I would have done the same if I was in there for longer. =P

We eased our way into Christchurch, checked into our flight, and I was astounded at how cheap the carpark was. Less than 15 mins was free, we took 30 mins and that was 2 bucks NZ. TWO BUCKS!!! For that same time, Syd. Airport would have charged us 6 bucks… at least! -_- *shakes fist* Anywho, we went off to eat in the park… except Charlotte and I had already eaten in the car (the boys were a bit put out by that) and so they dropped us off at the markets we saw at the Arts Centre.

The Arts Centre reminded me of Europe a bit… the architecture and whatnot. Made me miss the times I was in europe, roaming around when I could… *sighs* Anywho, we couldn’t find the markets at first, but then we did… and although it was really nice, it was also pretty small. I dunno about Charlotte, but I was a bit disappointed – just a tad =P

So that was pretty much our trip to NZ’s South Island in a nutshell… =) I miss it already… the rolling hills, the snow-capped mountains either looming over us or in the far distance, the sheep! (they were so cute), the non-traffic… Definitely going to go back – hopefully soon!