ski

We met some Swedish girls at the pub last night, some more clever than the others… One of them worked in the ski school at Porters ski field, she was nice. The other two studied tourism at Christchurch University, and they were kind of a disgrace for Sweden… the light was on but nobody was home, as you say. Or to quote one of the girls “you dont have to be a rocket scientist to study tourism”, I still cannot believe she actually said that about herself!
Anyways, we decided to check out Porters today, but first another breakfast sandwich at the awesome Chill Cafe before heading to the mountain.

Porters was one of the most commercial club fields and they only had t-bar lifts. I was rather excited about that, as I was kind of sick with struggling on the nut cracker lift. There is one down side with a filed only having t-bar lifts; lots of beginners and lazy families. The beginners and the lazy people tend to stay away from fields with tricky lifts. On the good side, the field get more tourism and are able to expand and build decent cafe’s and restaurants on the mountain.
We had no luck with the weather today, icy and flat light, no fun at all 🙁 The snow condition was poor as well, and there were lots of rocks on the slopes.

I gave up after just one run, which was a little disappointing, the guys did a total of 3 runs so they would qualify for the after ski beer.
We decided that Porters ski field was good, but not for us, the tourists and families can have it! We took the car out and explored instead, drove an hour or so to Arthur’s Pass, had lunch and then went for a hike.

I’ve been Nea throughout the trip, Jr has been Jr since his is the kid, and today’s conversation between me and Jr;
N: We should start calling him Ole, after Ole Bramserud.
J: Why?
N: He has got all these gadgets that no one else has, or need for that matter, and he is driving a Porsche.
J: But he is kind of a dork though, like Stig-Helmer.
N: Thats true, lets call him Stig-Ole!

I love him though! I have know him for 6 years and we have traveled or hunged out on 5 continents so far, not bad for 6 years! We are gonna have to go to Africa soon!

Hiking though the jungle.

We drove a little further and came across this:
It is kind of hard to see, but here is a snapshot of what the old road used to look like just a few years back. I wonder how many cars that got swept away from avalanches! In 2000, they built the bridge that is in red on the map.

When we got back to our car it was invaded by playful Kia’s. Jr tried to scare them off, but they just stared at him as if he was some kind of mad man.

Some more interesting obstacles along the road.

I called Quantas lost luggage in the morning, and they had finally located my skis, but they were still in Sydney and they wouldn’t be able to get them to me until later in the afternoon, they told me to go and rent ski equipment for the day and they would give me a refund up to NZ$100. The owner of the YHA hostel in Springfield was very helpful, and he also happen to have a ski rental in his backyard…

We were off course not that convinced at first (it is not always easy to travel with two ski nerds that work, sleep and live ski and ski equipment), but it turned out the guy had some decent stuff in his little barn, I got a pair of big trouble (I think), little longer and thinner than I’m used to but still a good ski, and a pair of boots that were a little too big, but super comfortable.

Everything got sorted out and we headed to the mountain.

New Zealand is incredible beautiful, so there will be a lot of these kind of photos while I’m here…

The roads up to the mountains in New Zealand is not really like the roads up to the mountains in Europe or North America. Most of the ski fields in NZ are local club fields, the land is owned by local farmers and the fields are runned with none, or next to no profit. To get up to Mt Olympus, we had to pass some farmers fields and sketchy bridges.

Halfway up, we had to stop and fit the chains, fitting chains can be tricky if you have never done it before. The macho men was crawling in the mud for a good 15 minutes. I got a little bored and cold and walked over to check on them and it took me about 20 seconds to figure it out…

This is a hotel/lodge you could stay at if you wanted to, we were a little more comfortable and thought the hostel down in the small town was better, and worth the drive.

The road up to the mountain.

Ready for the first day of skiing! T-bars and chairlifts are rare at club fields, they usually just have tow/rope lift. Since it gets pretty steep at places, you get a harness and a so called “nut cracker” to make it easier to hold on to the lift.

Here is “Jr” with the tow lift in the background.

The lunch restaurant was also the kitchen for the backpackers accommodation, the chefs were the ski bums that stayed on the mountain, and the food was awesome!

Lots of snow!

The kids forgot to fill up the car before heading to the mountain. We were a little concerned that we would be running out before getting back to Springfield and were lucky to come across this guy who happen to have 20 liters of petrol in his car!

I was thrilled to see my skibag when we got back to the hotel!

The first night we had two rooms, but we thought it would be more fun to share just one room, so the staff had made a mattress on the floor by the time we got back, it was about as long as it was wide, but apparently comfortable.

This is kind of a classic photo, with the beer and the “snus” hanging down his lip, but he was actually not that drunk, just super jet lagged from a 12 hour time difference.

A plane made out of beer cans, kind of neat!

I finally made it to New Zealand and was happy to find that one of my bags made it as well. I was waiting by the carousel forever to collect the ski bag, but the connection was too tight in Sydney for them to make it.
I was pretty bummed out, but happy to see my friends and they took me out for lunch, and the first Speights since ’03 tasted soo yum!

My friends had already rented a car, and they were already used to driving on the wrong side of the street. We were all pretty psyched when we saw the snow on the mountains!

Arrived at the hotel!

Sunset over the Southern Alps!

Getting ready to leave for NZ, my buddy dropped me off at the airport. We had some time to kill before my plane took off so we played around in the tax free stores.

I had an hour in Sydney, early morning and the sun raise.

Getting my skis ready for New Zealand, they are old school, but I love them! And even though they are a few years old, they have barely been skied on 🙁 Waxed them today, the edges were not as bad as I feared, but they could do with some tuning. Im hoping my friend will do that when we get down to NZ, or I will have to go to the shop and do it, or a third option is off course to stay away from the groomed slopes and stay back country and not have to worry about the edges being sharp enough!

For those who wonder, I have still not learned left from right…

It’s just not the elevation my legs has to get used to, my feet also has to get used to being locked up in the ski boots for a day. Ive been putting them on every now and then lately to get used to it. It takes about two hours before I start loosing the feeling in my feet now, so I think I will be ok.