Turoa Ski Trip!

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So I have a new roommate! Tim le Frenchman. Get on pretty well and have good Frog Vs Roast Beef banter. (Not sure if I have mentioned it before but) I’ve found a place to get some regular footie in! Initially I joined a Futsal team but they play on Sundays and I’m not available for most games so have backed out as there’s also something going on on Mondays. Just a casual Futsal game organised by a local with people from all around the world playing which is quite interesting as there’s a big mix of styles.

On the weekend, 6 of us - Kyle (Canadian), Niek + JW (Dutch), Dominik + Stephanie (German) - all took the Monday off work for a 3 day ski trip! Same mountain (Mt Ruapehu) as last time, but a different resort – Turoa. So we left Friday after work for a 4/5 hour drive and up early on Saturday to receive a text from some friends who were staying in the same national park doing one of the famous hikes. They said the mountain is closed but I thought they were just winding us up. Unfortunately they weren’t! We drove up to the mountain to have a look and it was a complete blizzard! No visibility and gale force winds with snow so the outlook wasn’t looking good for the rest of the weekend.

In the afternoon we did a short one hour walk and went to the tourist info centre where they recommended a place called Gravity Canyon which do bungee jumps, bridge swings and other big crazy swing things. So JW and Dominik decided to do the bridge swing which looked pretty cool. You get suspended in the air and do a massive freefall drop which then goes into a swing style motion. Apparently the biggest in NZ.

Up early on Sunday not feeling too optimistic about the conditions but the report seemed ok so we rented all the gear and got up the mountain to find perfect clear blue skies with little wind! I booked myself into a group snowboard lesson (level for linking turns) and turned up to find I was the only one booked in, so ended up having a private lesson! It went well and I was taken off the beginner slope and up the mountain by the end of the hour. After the lesson, I struggled a bit on the steeper slopes but as the day went on I was a lot more confident going down and linking the turns. However I still had plenty of falls! So we took over the Jacuzzi at the ski lodge for most of the evening.

Monday 7am: MOUNTAIN CLOSED!!!!! After a perfect day sandwiched in between two closed ones, this really typified New Zealand’s random and changeable weather. The owner of the ski Lodge recommended we stop in Rotorua on the way back and do some cycling. We drove there via Taupo and after reading the guidebook on the way , and feeling pretty sore from the previous day, we decided to do Zorbing instead. Best way to describe it: Put inside a big inflatable ball and rolled down a hill. It looked a bit tame when we got there and had a look, but they chuck water inside and it feels a lot more intense when you’re actually doing it, so well worth it in my opinion!

So pretty disappointed to only have the one day of snowboarding in, but we ended up having a good time anyway. I’m hooked now and will definitely have to go when back in Europe!

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Photos

Bridge Swing
JW and Dominik

Lake Taupo
(From top left:) Niek , Me, Kyle, Stephanie, Dominik, JW