Wanaka Ski Trip

Spontaneous? Sure, we're spontaneous! We were given three days notice of five glorious days off in a row from Kathmandu... What shall we do? Let's go skiing! Quickly and efficiently (efficient for us, anyway) we gathered the necessities into our car and drove 11.5 hours (the same distance that took us thirteen days to ride on our bicycles) to get to Wanaka. Our route took us down the west coast, the rainy, wet west coast. Near Greymouth, we saw a paper-boy driving his car and delivering papers out the rolled down window. Now, normally this wouldn't surprise me, but what made me stare was the fact that he was driving 110 kph down the highway in front of us delivering papers out the rolled down window, and did so pretty precisely without slowing down. His accuracy was supreme (most of the time). I was impressed. By the time dinner time had come and long since past, we found ourselves in Haast. Yucky, dirty, smelly Haast. I didn't like Haast the first time I was there with Beth. I didn't like Haast the second time I was there on our bikes with Brian. And, sure as heck, I didn't like Haast this time. Here's why: We decided to eat something at the local (the only) pub, if you could call it a pub - it was more like a hunter's meeting emporium with antlers hung on every possible stitch of wall/ceiling/floor space. Mental note: don't order Thai Curry Chicken from a place with antlers hung on the wall. It cost $23 for the Thai Curry Chicken dish, and it looked like it came out of a can and was heated in a microwave. I should have taken a photo of the monstrosity before us, but it grossed me out too much. We ate as much as we could shove down without getting ill, and then kept driving on our way towards Wanaka. Good riddance Haast!By the time we got to Wanaka, it was almost 10:00PM, and we were beat. Beat up with our lousy meal in Haast, and beat up with the rain and darkness and severely winding roads. It was our original plan to drive all the way to Queenstown that night and stay over with Perg and Christina, but once we arrived in Wanaka, the backseat of our car was looking mighty inviting. So that's what we did. We parked by the lake and folded the seats down and had a pretty sweet snooze all night. Come morning, we had a great view of the lake and the surrounding mountains warming up with the sunrise (of course all this became visible once the windows de-fogged). After the most amazing breakfast and coffee at the organic food store/cafe, Brian and I drove the rest of the way to Queenstown for a Fergburger (Canada needs a Fergburger - it's 162 times better than Burger King), and met up with Christina and Perg for a brief chat before heading back to Wanaka.

Once we were back in Wanaka, we stayed at Sandra's place (she's a Canadian nurse Brian and I bumped into at the grocery store in Oamaru when I broke my arm). She works part time in Oamaru, and part time at the ski hill near Wanaka called Treble Cone. We must do something special for Sandra because she let us stay at her place, she made us dinners, and gave us 50% off ski tickets. Sweeeet. We must also do something for Ed and Marion (friends of Brian's whom he met bike touring on the north island), because Ed gave us free ski rentals from the store he works at in Wanaka. Double sweeeeet. And lastly, we must thank Mylene (from Quebec) and Rusty (a native Kiwi) for driving us up to the ski hill on those nasty, steep and windy roads.

The three days of non-driving were fantastic. We had a big sushi feast one night; eight people ingested 22 homemade sushi rolls. Mmmm....

Left to Right: Brian, Rusty, Sandra, and me.

We played "Zilch" (a.k.a. "Ten Thousand"): a dice game where you roll six dice and the aim is to build up 10,000 points to win. If you don't roll a one or a five on your turn, you get zilch, hence the name of the game. Hard to explain, fun to play.

I was doing okay to start with, but soon thereafter we started to blame my bad luck on the curse of the couch. I got zilch so many times, I ended up with zero, zilch, nada.

Games aside, the skiing was pretty good. The snow wasn't as great as Lake Louise, and the hill consists of, well, pretty much fields and fields of moguls, but other than that - oh wait, the patches of bare rocks and grass, yes, but other than that it was great!

Most of our time on the hill was spent with Mylene and Rusty (the two boarders with dread locks in the photo below). It was fun to follow behind them and watch them do jumps and tricks. It made me want to start boarding...

The second day proved to be a blessing from the weather gods: sunny, warm, and super clear. You could see all the way to Wanaka from anywhere on the hill. It was easy to realize that we were skiing in New Zealand, and definitely not Canada (the lack of trees helped to differentiate as well).

Brian caught a video of Mylene snowboarding. She had done a wicked jump in the same spot ealier in the day (photo taken by Rusty):So we anticipated BIG AIR, but the jump in the video ended up being a wee-jump - I think because it was the end of the second day and our legs were getting very tuckered out.

Both Mylene and Rusty have dreadlocks, as I mentioned before. They looked pretty awesome standing side by side while cooking quesidillas and drinking beer. Mylene's dreads are seven years old! That's a lot of hair to carry around every day. They look awesome though. I love them, and secretly wish I had dreads like that too.

On our last morning, before we made the mad dash, 11.5-hour drive back home, we posed for one last photo with our gracious host, Sandra. The remainder of our day looked a lot like this:But we did manage to stop a few times for road-side pee breaks, water bottle refills, and the occasional scenic photo opportunity:I believe the photo below is one of the coolest and tripped-out photo I've ever taken. It is not a double exposure. It has not been altered. How did she do it???It's a photo of a window reflection (the mountains and sky) with the image looking into the window of a small church with rounded open door at the other end. Here's another picture taken from the same spot, but off to the side:

More photographic horsing around in the passenger seat of the car at night with a six second exposure at night:

The trip was exhausting, but oh-so worth it! Especially since Brian and I have decided that we won't be staying in New Zealand much longer. Yes, you heard it here first: we're heading back to Canada... soon. The tickets have just been booked.

The plan-o-action: I'll fly to Vancouver on September 1, and chill out with friends and the fam for a week before flying down to San Francisco, where I'll meet my dear Brian (who will be flying directly from NZ to San Fran). We'll hop back on our bicycles and ride up the coast - the California coast, the Oregon coast and the Washington coast, and then up and over to Victoria and then on to Chilliwack so Brian can meet my parents. I think the next blog address should be "San Fran To Van".

It will be extremely sad to leave New Zealand now, with all our friends, fun activities, and the coming of spring, but at the same time it feels right to go, to head onto another adventure and make our way back to Canada. It has been said to me before, "Leave the 'party' while it's going strong, and you'll have nothing but awesome and fun memories about the place." Regardless of this fact, and how true I know it is... it will be difficult to get on that plane...