A night with the worlds best skiiers

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Haha, I get great pleasure out of trying to entice people with my blog titles - thats probably the most dramatic way I could desribe this blogs content.

I'm very busy with work at the moment unfortunately and so it's been a while since I've had anything to write about. However I did manage to get away a weekend or so ago for a bit of a break.

I headed a few hours to my east to Queenstown; a very beautiful town surrounded by tall mountains and vast emerald coloured lakes. Part of the fun for me of going here (and I must like it as this was my fourth time there over the last year!), is just in the coach ride up to the town. You leave the farm land around my town Dunedin, and gradually the terrain becomes more and more mountainous. Soon you can see the snow covered tops of the bigger mountains away in the distance and the bus pulls alongside a river. The cliff to your left grows steeper and steeper and it becomes a real adrenealine ride, one misplaced turn by the driver and thanks to New Zealand's lack of safety rails, you'd plummet hundreds of feet into the water below. A morbid thought, but luckily all the scenery starts to look so amazing around about here that you're soon distracted.

After I pulled into Queenstown I met up with my flatmate Andrew Napier - a very good skiier who makes award winning ski videos!! What Andrew didn't tell me at first however, was that the friend he had with him, Tom Wallisch, was ranked as the worlds best slope-style skiier!! Pretty cool! We had come to Queenstown for Tom to take part in the New Zealand Winter Games the next day - a new international competition held in the mountain ranges just outside of Queenstown. Tom was a nice guy, and having never skiied before I readied myself to look pretty bad compared to the two of them the next day!

It was an early night for Tom however as he had swine flu!! I kept my distance from him a little without trying to appear rude.. although, everyone and his son has had swine flu in New Zealand by now - quite a common illness here!

I got very little sleep that night as it was the hostels opening night and a party was raging until breakfast time. All I could hear throughout the night was 'BOOM BOOM BOOM'. Luckily I had my mp3 player with me and so played some New Device for a while to block out the dance music (hope you're taking note Lyn and Greg - I'm New Device's biggest fan!!).

The next day I got to try a little bit of beginners skiing while Tom geared up to win the winter games. My ski instructor was lovely but didn't know as much about psychology as she thought she did - every mistake I made she'd blame it on panicking - 'That's it, you're getting it!' she'd say as I sped down the slope, and then the moment I'd start to fall over she'd say 'you're panicking!' - 'I feel OK!' I'd say. Then I'd try again, fall over, and she'd say 'I think you're getting a bit put off, and getting a bit panicked'. Eventually we figured out my feet were just in the wrong position - a bad skiier maybe, but a calm one thankyou very much.

So after adjusting my technique I was able to do the beginners slope OK and was quite enjoying it, but decided to go check out Tom Wallisch in the competition. He was on the terrain park of the ski slope - a much more advanced and complicated slope with rails, huge jumps and many other obstacles which I don't know the technical term for. In short, he was incredible, as I guess the worlds best at this event would be! He effortlessly performed 1080 degree flips, backflips, huge grinds and many other cool tricks. While he did great, it was still a shock to hear an hour later that he had come first in the competition!! After all the races were done he climbed up on to a podium and smiled for the TV cameras while the American national anthem played for him. He then collected his $3000, did several interviews and then we were off! It made for interesting conversation in the car out of the ski field, although I got the impression this was a normal event for Andrew and Tom!

We then headed to a town an hour from Queenstown called Wanaka to spend the night at Andrew's friend's house. It turned out we were spending the night there along with around ten other skiiers, all of which were from the competition that day!! They were all some really top skiiers - one of them was a seventeen year old from Sweden who holds the world record for the most rotations in the air!! (Something like 1440 degrees I think, although I don't really know what I'm talking about)

It was exciting, although as I don't really know much about skiing I was off to the side a bit just trying to work out what they were talking about! They were nice though and it was a cool ski-lodge like house to stay in. I spent the night sleeping on the couch beneath some nasty, thick looking spiderwebs. We were warned by one of the guys that in the middle of the night the big spiders above fall off the ceiling and start moving around on the floor. The guy's description of their size made them sound like tarantulas, pretty creepy - but then what can you do! I didn't sleep too bad this time, although some bed bugs (or tarantulas?!) had a field day on my side - my stomach and right arm were covered in red lumps the next day.

And so after that the rest of the trip was just six hours of travelling home to Dunedin - a nice as I say, but long trip!

Since then I've just been busy with two things - work and music, so not much more to write at the moment!

I hope everyone is 'sweet as bro' and having a good time!

Let me know your news, speak soon!

Tom x x

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Comments

[Brian]

Awesome
Hi Tom The trip sound awesome in the true meaning of the word. You write a great story - any photo's to add to it? You must have been skiing in one of the very best locations in the world. Hemel's snow dome can't compare!. Keep having fun Dad

[Noelle]

Great stuff!
Really enjoyed the update - am hoping to see you do 1080 flips at Hemel Snow Centre when you get home! xxx

[Jess]

This sounds awesome. I'm very jealous. Did you take pictures - of the skiing competition and of you trying to ski?? x

[Jen]

I think you're getting a bit panicked

[tomhunt107]

Haha! Sorry, didn't see this comment come in originally! Haha, nooo! You're bringing back painful memories of narrowly avoiding small children as I tumbled down the slope in my skis!