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Published: March 24th 2008
Day 2 was perfect
we could actually see.Thought I'd have another crack of this considering my 2 subscribed viewers, who I have no idea are, might be getting a little bit bored with only the one pathetic entry considering I've had over 600 hits already and it's only been 3 days. Scary? No. Not at all.
Anyway, September 2007 my mates Mitch and Megs and I decided last year to head over to NZ for a bit of skiing. Skiing in Australia has more disadvantages than advantages unfortunately, apart from being 99% fake, minimal coverages of snow on ridiculously overcrowded slopes, it's a frigan rip off. It was cheaper to fly overseas for our week long snow trip - and if the option of going through duty free exists, I'm all in.
The trip over was interesting. The night before we left the friendly lady from Virgin rang and alerted us to the fact that our pilot was too much of a pansy to fly back from Tonga due to a tornado, tsunami, hurricane, earthquake and/or other natural disasters occurring at that time. Pathetic I know. Put yourself out of your comfort zone once in a while - its one of the seven habits of highly
Rakaia Gorge
Professional Photographer Much? effective people, everyone knows that. After we were given basically one option, we had to haul ass down to Melbourne that night then catch a connecting flight over to Christchurch from there with Jetstar. Let's not talk about the flight attendants we had on board and the lack of certain talent involved. A few bottles of cheap OP rum and a flogged to death '05 Lancer later, we arrived in Methven - our home for the week and my pillow about ten seconds later - I was buggered.
As you'll notice from my professional photography, New Zealand is beautiful and kicks ass. Infact, If it wasn't for the accent and the dollar-fifty-plus a litre fuel prices, I reckon it's probably livable. Anyway, scoffing down our brekky and donning the stylish ski gear we were ready to hit the snow and kick some kiwi butt with our non-existant skiing sk1llz. Megs having never seen snow before, Mitch only briefly when we went to Hobart in 2005 and I who had been a few times were super pumped and ready to go. We had a shuttle bus that picked us up every day from right outside that costs about 70 bucks
for the week - bargain considering the road was crazy - narrow, windy, slippery and full of local wankers prepared to obviously throw themselves off the edge by overtaking buses on tight corners for no reason.
We spent 4 days at Mt Hutt and experienced every possible weather condition the land of the long white cloud had to offer. The first day was foggy as - we literally couldn't see the poor bugger in front of us until we had actually hit them and had fallen over on top of them - skis everywhere and snow in every pocket. Experiencing actual snowfall was pretty cool, almost freezing, and heaps better than what I got at Perisher. Mitch and Megs started off with a lesson, but I had somehow remembered a few mo0v3z from year 12 when I had been skiing last, and decided to head to the top to try out a black run of course. Bad idea. Embarrassment aside, up the top was actually above the fog and couldn't wait to let the other two know about how awesome the view was and what an amazing place this was with visibility again.
The second day was perfect.
Coruba
Its the Bundy away from home. Good drop. Not a cloud in the sky. I had a word to one of the locals, and she said that today was quite possibly the nicest day of the season. She insisted that the day was infact 'choice bro'. She actually said that. Impressed by her ability to seem to know about the New Zealand language (which is substantially different from Australian thankyou very much), she unfortunately could not give me a demonstration of the haka, and consequently blamed it on the baggy snow pants. Ehhhh weak. She was actually from Sweden and was working for the season - and because I don't know any native Swedish dances that I could refer to, she was forgiven this time. We all progressed to green and blue runs, and we won't talk about the decent Megs had on her first blue run - let's just say we could have filled the swear silo let alone every empty jar in Kiwiland. What was even funnier, the second go she flew down - no probs at all. By the end of the day, I suggested to Mitch and Megs that they should accompany me to the summit and have a look at the view -
Lancer
4wd through creeks. because I was pretty sure you could catch the lift back down while I was happy to ski down. Up the top was fantastic - we built a snow man and took about 2000 photos. As I farewelled the two pikers, I gunned it down the mountain and couldn't find them down the bottom where they had promised to meet me upon my return. I paid good money for this, so I made a mutual decision to fang down again giving them plenty of time to arrive at the said meeting place. I hauled it up to the summit again for my flat-stick race to the bottom. 2 mins into it, I hear..
"OMG HALP I HATE THIS MOUNTAIN WTF IS THIS SH!T OMGGGGGG LOL!"
"Oh, I take it you can't go back down on the lift eh?"
Being thrown in the deep end is quite possibly the best way to give things a go. Turns out the both had a blast and actually wasn't as bad as it looked from up the top depending on which run you took. That night we headed into Methven for some local grub. We heard (but found out ourselves) that
the Brown Pub was the place to eat - bargain and really good hearty meals - and the Blue Pub was the place to drink. Happy birthday Mitch. Needless to say everyone got totally trashed and had an awesome time. I finally passed out at about 8am. Eyyyy! Choice.
The third day was slightly disappointing. As much as It would have been interesting, the mountain was closed due to gale force winds and flying debris. Weak. From memory, this is the day we decided to head to Hanmer Springs instead. Assuming that was the case, we checked out the township of Hanmer Springs and played a game of minigolf - which was actually really cool - even though I lost. A horse ride was next in store for the three musketeers - which was even more fun. The drive was interesting even getting there - who said Lancers can't cross rivers? Not I said this wise guy. They don't charge the age excess on rental cars for nothing. Anyway, having never ridden a horse before, I was somewhat excited and freaked out at the same time. They are bloody massive animals. Getting on and coming to terms with what
Lots of nature in NZ
The locals were excited upon our arrival. a stupid animal I had been nominated to team up with did not help my initial feelings about the idea. I had one of the youngest horses in the fleet - but the bloody thing wouldn't stay awake. I had to kick my ski buggered legs into it's guts in an effort to keep it awake the whole time. I wasn't worst off though - Mitch's horse got a bit excited half way around and thought that it was appropriate to buck him off and take off snowy river styles. Serious injuries and fleas later, we hit the springs for a relaxing 45 degree communal bath that was of a brown colour. A ten dollar deposit for a wet, cold towel and we were in and having a blast. It was freezing cold and a bit windy but all was good. We headed to the first bath (only 38 degrees) and sat there until thawed. Then after realising there was an even hotter bath - sounds good - we legged it to the 45 degree sulfur baths just in time before our bits froze off. They were putrid, but apparently good for you. By that stage it was getting late
Road to Hutt
Just outside of Methven and came straight back to Methven. Good times.
Day 4 was upon us and so is 6 rums, so I hope the accuracy of this blog is kept up. Anywhoooooo Mt Hutt was on hold due to continual wind and an assortment of items flying across the mountain. Sounds fun to me, but we're only here for a week, we don't have time to buggerise around sightseeing at the Royal Methven Hospital, which probably wouldn't help anyway because judging from the amount of animals slash wildlife over there that clearly out-populate humans by about 235783257 to one, it might be full of sheep with sniffles. We decided to skip across the countryside and floored it south - Colin McRae styles, dodging peacocks, sheep and other small mammals. Camera, McKiwiburger and steering wheel in hand, we arrived at Timaru - an interesting town with not much going for it. We parked in town and had a look around for a bit. 2 mins 20 sec later, we decided to head home. The scenery around the Canterbury Region is awesome. It's diversity and aesthetics were much more than we were getting back in Brisbane that time of year. We hadn't seen
All dressed up and ready to go
but looking like an absolute fool. green grass for six months and blue water was also a novelty.
Our last day on the mountain was not going to stop us. We were going skiing, rain, hail, shine or snow - regardless of the snow report. And ski we did my good friend. We were sick of the same boring runs so Mitch and I went bush and came back down with a snowboard that we later figured out we probably could have taken home, returned it back to the hire company to collect the deposit or at least pawned it on ebay.co.nz. We then reflected upon our findings and pondered on the fact of "where the hell did the rider go.." Have a fun hike mate. As it was however our last day, we went all out busting funky manouverz on the terrain parks, jumps, flips, half-pipes, grinds, rails, tables, rooves and park benches - being the so called members of Jackass as we thought we were.
We were wrong.
We tried a jump or two and let me tell you that 30cm of air feels like next stop: Auckland. We actually piked early that day and caught the 3pm bus home -
because the wind came up again and it was bloody freezing. After we handed back our hire gear, we travelled around Rakaia Gorge - just north of Methven which turned out to be an awesome drive with different scenery yet again.
The next day we choofed off from Methven and headed back to the big smoke for our last night in NZ - Christchurch. We headed up the gondola to check out the sights from up on top of the place. We saw the whole of Christchurch and behind to what seemed to be a port of some sort. Had a pretty good coffee up there too - Ziggy's Stardust - a coffee with a raspberry shot. Why the hell not. By that stage we were able to check into our accommodation and relaxed for 5 minutes before we headed off again. It was destination Antarctic Centre. Apparently it was voted NZ's best attraction a few times running. It was pretty good, lots to read as usual and actual artifacts from various base camps from the Antarctic. They had a simulator of a blizzard - basically a giant freezer that went off every half hour with sub zero winds
The nutjob bus driver
This guy was a psycho. Note: Crazy road and conditions. and snow storms. We also saw the feeding of the group of fairy penguins they have there - amazing little fellas that are both talented and smelly. Pretty sweet. We then found some Pizza Hut coupons in a newspaper which came in handy for dinner as we finished off the last of our bottles of Bundy which we wouldn't be allowed to take back to Australia.
The following morning we were off to the airport for our trip home. Flight was pretty good - we flew Virgin Atlantic - which obviously have a better trained HR department when it comes to the recruitment of their cabin crew. Not as good as the Hobart to Brisbane trip, but definitely up there. We arrived home safely and unfortunately turbulence free and bugger - had to go through duty free again. 1.125lt bottle of OP rum and another sort of rum I tried at the Blue Pub - Caruba came to about 50 bucks.
All in all it was an awesome trip and most probably my favourite holiday so far. Definitely another trip is in line - possibly Queenstown next or even Canada with any luck.
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