of ski action – day 8

16 August – Day 8
In which it is our last day snowboarding =(

Our last day at Cardrona was a bittersweet one: not only was it our last day, the conditions weren’t that great either – it got quite windy.

Quite windy indeed.

I was on the Comeback Trail traverse to go back to base, slowing down because I was fighting the erratic wind from pushing me over the cliff. A passing ski instructor was nice enough to give me a tow, only when I let go, a massive gust of wind came out of nowhere and I slowed to a stop again. Another tow helped me back in to motion right up to the very last crest, where I was too tired by this time to try to keep myself going. Ruby caught up with me, as I struggled against the wind, gravity, and tiredness to get over the hill and to Whitestar Express. Bah.

After a couple of runs on the green trail (everyone else was doing jumps and stuff on blue trail next to us), we amused ourselves by tobogganing down the mini slope used for teaching tiny tots’ how to ski. I should have taped ourselves sliding down the slopes, but I just wanted to have fun and the wind was quite biting to have a hand out of the glove =T

I had taken out my camera to take a couple of photos earlier on, not realising that I had dropped my credit card and driver’s license at the same time… not until we were about to leave a couple of hours later. Unbelievably, someone was so very nice in handing it into lost property, though part of me frets that they may have written down the credit card number and the security number on the back… just biding their time to use it. Am I being paranoid about this? I’m not sure =.=

Ruby’s flight was earlier than ours because our flight was full by the time she got around to booking her tickets. This meant that she had to find her own way to Queenstown. Found out there’s a bus that goes directly to Queenstown airport from the Wanaka Information Center (or iSite), which leaves at about 6:45am to make her 10am flight. Eeek, so early, but I told her I’d drop her off anyways.

Once business was done, a jumping photo was in order.

We went out to Red Rock that night, after hearing heaps funny stories from the guys and Ruby, only to find out it was rather dead. Even so, we were there for quite a while I think.

Ram and I had a domestic at Red Rock, which I can’t remember what it was about, but I’m quite sure we worked it out… somehow. =P

of ski action – day 7

15 August – Day 7
In which we go to the snow park

We discussed when we should go to the Snow Park and decided that the second last day was best: if we were to fall badly it was pretty much the end of the trip anyways so it wouldn’t be so bad, and if everything went well then the stuff we would have learnt could be practised at Cardrona. A win-win situation really, no? hehe

I don’t have that much of a desire to do tricks and whatnot and I also didn’t think my skill level at the moment would cater for attempting jumps and stuff… so I decided to sit this one out.

Elena and I ended up watching the Bigair competition (which was really, really awesome) from within the bar/restaurant area. One of the Jap guys that Mark had picked up during the week, Taku, was there! I think he finished 6th? Top 10 at least =)

Sadly though, I succumbed to sleep halfway through the men’s finals =.= boo. Hahah Elena and I mostly napped that day. It was great.

Everyone else had a very instructive day on the slopes, learning how to do boxes and rails and stuff. I think they were super tired afterwards and so we just chilled at home afterwards.

Yeah, it was a terribly exciting day lol so here are some of my favourite photos from Ricardo’s camera of the trip so far…

of ski action – day 6

14 August – Day 6
In which we all go out

Another satisfying day at Cardrona… okay, so I don’t remember what happened on the slopes on this day, but I’m quite sure we all had fun! =P

Last time we were in Wanaka, it didn’t snow at all. Today was the 4th day it snowed in town – something that’s quite out of the norm, our waitress that night declared. It snowed in big, fat snowflakes, lightly covering everything in pretty white. Ah, snow =)

We ate at Capriccio, where the service was excellent, the food pretty decent, and the wine glasses makes that noise when you run your finger around the lip. Ruby first discovered that it was possible, then Frank and some of the others enthusiastically got into the swing of things – making quite an awful racket. hehe. Our waitress, who I think is also the manager or owner of the restaurant, was quite amused by their antics and traded quips with the guys.

Since we were all out, the guys wanted to hit up Shooters…

Ricardo took photos of our faces behind beer glasses and then created a collage for his NZ photo album…

We were out of wood for the fireplace at home and Shooters had… well, lots…

Ruby got one too, but she didn’t get to take a photo with her wood piece ‘cuz she was a bit all over the place that night. XD She managed to leap onto a bench outside Shooters, slipped, and landed on her elbow, which kind of swelled up and still hurts after 2 weeks. =.=;;

Meanwhile, Ram piggy-backed Jess and BenH piggybacked Teresa and they started to race off.

“Where are we racing to??” BenH shouted at Ram. Ram looked around and spotted a random walking down the street.

“To him for a high-five!!” He said, pointing to the now-startled passer-by. The guy stopped and put up both his hands – ready to receive the high-five XD lol yay randoms! hehehe

They walked back to where everyone was loitering, laughing about what just happened whilst retelling it to another who had just joined them (I think it was Ben Yee?). When they mentioned the high-five bit, they noticed a guy on the other side of the street suddenly stop and put up his hand.

“Why are you putting out your hand?” Ram called out.

*pause* “I wanted high-five too…” lol I don’t know if they did give him a high-five (most probably they did hahah), cuz when all these fun stuff was happening, I was inside collecting their jackets =.=;; Bah.

When we finally got home, BenH took out the vodka jelly (which was awfully strong) and divvied up amongst everyone. The vodka jelly has very much been long awaited as the first one was all eaten by hungry drunks and the second slipped out of BenH’s hands as he was taking it out of the freezer (he was so broken hearted, the poor thing).

of ski action – day 5

13 August – Day 5
In which we have sunshine, lollipops, and rainbows

Because we woke up and got to the slopes so late yesterday, we tried to make up for it – managing to get to Cardrona’s base at 9am-ish (BenH woke us up this time). We all had a good feeling about today (though I didn’t want to get too excited just in case…) and eagerly hit the slopes.

There’s not a lot to say besides…

IT WAS FREAKIN’ AWESOME!!!!!!

XD Hahahah But truly it was. I know Ruby and I had the best time hitting the slopes – the coverage was excellent, the ride…mmm, pure sweetness. <3 It would be safe to say that we all fell in love with Cardrona just that bit more.

Anywho, because the conditions were so great, Ruby and I decided to mess around and took some photos and video'ed ourselves boarding. I particularly wanted to capture the Skyview run, as the views are just amazing (I'll post them up once I get them down to a decent size).

The boys, Ram, and Ruby went out to Shooters (they have Karaoke on Wednesday nights) and ended up at Red Rock. They had to wait in line because it was filled to capacity… queuing!! In Wanaka!!! Lol… that’s such an odd concept when it’s not applied to chair lifts.

Ram got picked up by what they suspect to be a gay guy OR it could have been a Jap dude asking Ram to pick up Jap girls with him because Ram’s “safe” – i.e. between Jap dude and Ram, girls would pick Jap dude XD hahah. That’s what the guys theorised why the dude was so attached to Ram even though Ram’s like: “I’ve got a gf!” and “Mark! Mark! He wants a Jap girl!” heheh

Anywho, I stayed at home because I didn’t want such a late night, but I couldn’t sleep and ended up watching Animal Planet for most of the time I was up. They came home at about 2:45am and I stuck around, listening to their stories of the night. They were really silly.

When I first saw them, I had to ask if they had raided a construction site ‘cuz they had the Caution sign tied around their body in some way or another. Thankfully, they didn’t, but I can’t remember now how they got them. =.=

of ski action – day 4

12 August – Day 4
In which visibility is zero

Last night, it snowed great, big, fat snowflakes. We were excited because we reckoned it would mean that there would be sweet, sweet coverage on the slopes.

What we didn’t really figure on was visibility.

Seeing sullen grey clouds today dampened our expectations for great conditions a bit, but decided to drive to Cardrona anyways, with the hope that perhaps it wouldn’t be so bad up there.

Unfortunately, it was actually worse.

The wind was practically howling, whipping snow across the ground and sometimes into our faces; it was kind of like sand in a way.

We debated whether it was worth going up and in the end we went up anyways. We left the house quite late, so it was pretty much half a day on the slopes. Considering the conditions, it was more than enough.

Visibility was so bad that they had to stick in bright fluro flag markers to ensure we didn’t go off the runs (some of us were using them as slalom markers haha… I know I was). It would clear up now and again, but mostly we could only see as far as about 10 metres. >_< Yes, crazy... it was a bit freaky snowboarding when you can't see much in front of you nor what the terrain is like to do your turns. Don't get me started on the traverses *shudders*

Ram, Ricardo (? I'm not too sure who was with us), and I were on the chair lifts when we saw a medic ski patrol come up to a group of people. We were like, man, some poor bastard's hurt themselves... and Ram suddenly exclaimed, "Oh my God, that looks like Elena! There's Bruce and Ben too!" Sympathies quickly turned into concern as we tried to converse with BenH - chair lift to ground. It seemed that Elena took a tumble and somehow hurt her wrist. By the time we boarded down to where they were, Elena was already stretchered down to base and the others had just left to follow.

Ruby was feeling not so great and spent most of the time in Captain's Cafe with her head on the table, sleeping. We went to pick her up and helped her to the other side of the mountain. It was really pain-staking because she was so ill and tired that she barely had any energy to really board, let alone cross a traverse that's shrouded in fog.

Ram and I stopped on the traverse, waiting for Ruby. It was taking a long while and I was starting to get a bit worried, but when I voiced my concern to Ram, a passing snowboarder told us that she was coming: "Just really slowly" hehe

So Elena was pronounced to have a hairline fracture in her left wrist after getting an x-ray, which wasn’t the greatest of news. She seemed to take it well though and seemed to have taken it right in her stride – something I’m actually quite impressed with. I know if I fractured my wrist or otherwise, rendering me incapable of boarding for the rest of the trip would really have sunk me into a sullen funk for the rest of the trip. (Yes, I suppose I *am* a bit of a diva, sadly enough haha)

Ruby went straight to bed, and so did Mark – having such a late night last night, they were really really beat. It was funny though, through total coincidence, Ruby woke up and came downstairs… and then Mark followed suit about 2 minutes later. Mischievously, I joked to Ram about such likely timings… *wink wink nudge nudge* hahahaha I’m so lame. XD

For the past couple of days, we’ve been having problems keeping the fire going. Ruby even cleaned out the ash, but to not a lot of success – not even when we used alcohol! It would burn merrily for a while, but then die down after an hour or so. When we came back, we had this positively roaring fire – Ben had somehow started and kept the fire going.

So pleased with his work, he asked me to take a photo of it. lol After such hard work, how could I not comply? =D

of ski action – day 3

11 August – Day 3
In which we have a blue bird day

We went to Cardrona today and the weather was awesome – clear, sunny, blue skies. <3 The slopes were mostly pretty sweet - excellent coverage.

While everyone went to Captain's Basin, I stayed around the easy green runs to hopefully gain the confidence to stick toeside properly. After a couple of runs, I decided to take the Skyview run - something I never did because I thought it'd be really narrow and freaky (even though it's graded as a green).

The decline was easy and gentle... turned out to be the perfect run to do nice and slow, easy s's. =D Yay! I did it a couple more times before breaking for lunch and then went looking for the rest of the gang. I kept gawking at the view and stacking it because I wasn't paying attention XD

For the rest of the day, we were at Captain's basin mucking around and the conditions were just so sweet! People came in droves and so the chair lift queues were rather long. I overheard a conversation between some locals on how the snow park raised the cost of their season pass to fleece the tourists, so everyone pretty much diverted to Cardrona - especially since they take care of their customers.

Oh~! We had to do a traverse to get back to base and I was really surprised that the Comeback Trail was really sweet and easy. Even so, I managed to stack it right at the end haha

Anywho, so it was an awesome day and I managed to get most of my confidence back =)

Mark had picked up a Jap dude and a few of us met up with him at Shooters. I was only suppose to drive them there, but got peer pressured to join.

While I was really tired, it was amusing to see the guys be silly and try to pick up more Jap people (not discriminating between genders either XD). Shiro, the dude Mark picked up, pointed out that the table next to us had several professional snowboarders seated there.

There was quite a lot of broken English and Japanese floating around, but everyone was having so much fun – connecting on a level that only alcohol could induce.

Bruce baked some awesome, crunchy cookies earlier in the night, which we ate with gusto, and when we came back from our lark in the pub (the guys only left because they were closing lol) the guys ate most of it. =.=

of ski action – day 2

10 August – Day 2
In which we are super late

Ram stayed up with the guys (i.e. Mark, Ricardo, and Frank) last night and drank a whole 1.5L bottle of Blue Label Smirnoff – Triple Distilled by themselves. While the guys were fine, Ram spent most of the night throwing up (the first of which was gleefully documented on camera). =.=;;

He passed out the first/second time and had locked the door to discourage further documentation (you should have heard the words he said to get them out >_<). But because he had passed out, I had to hammer on the door for quite a while before he stirred and opened the door.

Man, he was so trashed. T_T

Ruby did a great job waking us up at about 8:30, where Ben and I went to hire our boards and BenH went to look for his boots.

I ended up with a 139cm board because they didn’t have any more 130 boards and the next smallest one was a 117. I was a bit dubious, but acceded that I would give it a go and see it’ll work out.

…

Biggest. Mistake. Ever.

It was so long I couldn’t turn the board and so I stacked it so much on the Easy Rider at Treble Cone – it was the worst run I’ve had in a loooong time.

I went to the Treble Cone Rental place and asked what could be done to make it a little easier to control. The lady said that they could make the stance a little smaller and hopefully that would help, directing me to one of the guys at the board tables. The guy kind of made a face and I thought, “Oh noes! He’s not going to do it for me.”

“I think what you need is a proper sized board for you… How about we swap the boards with something more your size?” My eyes, I swear, grew as big as saucers as I asked,”Really? You would do that?!”

And so he did.

The boarding was waaaay better, but I still had to get use to it. Also, the 139 board severely messed up my confidence – I can’t stick toe-side at all now T_T noooooes. bah. I realised that I would ride switch – avoiding having to do toe-side. So stupid, I feel utterly lame.

Ben and I went back to Green Toad and got our boards swapped for something hopefully more satisfactory.

For future reference: 130cm board, goofy, -9 and 15 degrees. =D

The girls and BenH really out did themselves at the supermarket… 3 trolleys full, 800 bucks =D crazy.

BenH pretty much cooked dinner for us by himself, with some help from the other guys. I think this has gotta be a first on any trip that I’ve been on where the kitchen was populated by males cooking XD hahahaha.

It was a feast! <3 Yum.

of ski action 08 – day 1

09 August – Day 1
In which we are delayed

We congregated at Sydney Kingsford Airport at 7am, only to discover that our flight was delayed by an hour and 10 minutes. Boo. While we were in line, we noticed a group of 5 or 6 people at the check out counter having issues with their luggage limit. One guy who was especially overweight took off his shoes and jacket and wore his snowboard boots and jacket! hehe smart arse.

It was funny because when it was our turn (we had 5 people checking in), it was like the opposite – no one had a problem with being overweight and zipped right through. The counter lady was rather impressed, calling Ben H. a “smooth operator” because he weighed in at 20.6kg haha. =D I was kinda over (that’s because I checked in Ruby’s board) though it didn’t look like it because the top part of the board was off the scales when Ram and I nudged it up to put my suitcase up. She was nice enough to ignore it =P

Our flight was suppose to depart at 8:50… we actually left the tarmac at 11:10am =.= nooooes. Poor Ruby had to wait pretty much 8 hours til we got to Wanaka to pick her up to go to the house (it’s a 6 hour drive from Christchurch to Wanaka… meh).

On the plane, we sat next to this chick who works for Contiki and “won” her trip to Queenstown for a week (it was a work incentive thingy). Ram chatted her up and I somehow ended up shamelessly plugging eatshowandtell lol.

When we touched down and had gone through security, I realised I had dropped my beanie. Had to go back and asked to be let back in to find it. The security people were heaps nice about it, he even approached the “men in blue” to enlist for their help (a bit much for a beanie, yes? hehe). Luckily someone had picked it up and put it on one of the signs. Gah, I’m always dropping stuff T_T

This year, we had hired 3 4WD RAV4s – not too sure why, because the other years were just vans. Anywho, we only stopped twice – once for dinner and once to stretch – and didn’t fill up. So when we were about 30 km from Wanaka, Mark’s car and mine were almost out of petrol – hovering dangerously on Empty; “Betty”, Mark’s car, had the Empty light on too. For some reason, Ram’s car was doing fine, having about 1/4 tank left – either more fuel efficient or bigger tank?

The house is heaps nice – nicely furnished and stuff. Ruby and I “helped” Jess and Elena with their Scrabble game over supper (which was Fantastic flat, dried noodles + egg). Elena was winning, while Jess had really horrible letters… and then the table was turned. Ahhh Scrabble, I remember those days where Dara and I use to play into the wee hours in the morning.

=D Can’t wait to get into bed, where it’s all nicely heated <3