Day 2: The Remarkables? (July 29th, 2006)







I woke up this morning a little sore from yesterday's antics and decide that I should invest in some padded shorts before making another run at the parks. Today I'm venturing out to the Remarkables. I wait for the shuttle with some of the guys from the 11 week course who are going up for their avalanche training course. Apparently most of the instructor course work is done on Coronet Peak, and pretty much everyone agrees that the Remarkables are vastly inferior. "The Remarkables?" asks one guy and quickly answers himself: "more like remarkably shitty." That's a ringing endorsement.

I should mention that I'm still struggling with conversation. The group has guys from New Zealand, Australia, England, Ireland, and even a welshman. But I'm categorizing them all as semi-unintelligible. It's not just the accents, it's all the strange words. "Skiing off piste?" is of course asking if you're heading out of the boundaries. And I had a time not laughing when they were discussing the nice "fannies" they saw in the bar last night. But my most frequent problem is understanding greetings. I know they're saying something like "hey how's it going" but I don't think they're using english words. So I just assuming that's what they said and things have been working so far.

Even worse is bar talk. As much as I enjoy bars, I've never understood why people insist on attempting full on conversations in them. Between the loud music and the hundred people screaming to talk aver the music, it's never seemed like a great venue for converstation. And now that I'm down here, I get to add another variable, attempting to discern the important words through loud music, hundreds of screaming voices, and a bastardized pronunciation of the english language. (I'm kidding, of course. I love the accents, but I feel better blaming them than my inability to understand my own language.)

Getting back on track, my first impressions of the Remarkables were pretty dismal. I tried each of the three chairs out, and didn't find anything exciting. The snow was miserable and the visibility was flat, making it difficult to see any bumps. I headed in for an early, long lunch (there was some live music which helped pass the time) and wondered why people talked so highly of this place.

Thankfully the afternoon was much better. The sun came out, making visibility better and softening up the snow. Over all it wasn't bad, but I can see why people like Coronet Peak better.

Tomorrow is going to be my first off day. It's supposed to snow tomorrow afternoon and night, which apparently makes the mountains quite miserable. Some new snow would be great, though. I've learned that while it hasn't snowed that often this year, when it has snowed it has snowed a bunch. The last snow fall was on July 21st (about 20cm), I'm ready for something fresh. The base is measure in cm (not meters), which means that they've got less than 3 feet of base snow. I'm keeping my fingers crossed for an ugly day tomorrow.

Day 1: Coronet Peak (July 28th, 2006)







The shuttle up to Coronet Peak takes about 30 minutes. Our lodge is the last stop on the way, which means we're the last ones to get on and the first ones to get off. I think that's a nice perk. The mountains up here are definitely different than what I'm used to. The view from the top of the lift was beautiful and I sat down and took it all in for a few minutes before starting my run.

Another subtle reminder that this place is not Whistler: this place is tiny. Coronet peak has three chair lifts. They're high speed and fairly long, but still, three lifts? Fortunately, despite the size, there is a lot of terrain. One reason there is so much terrain is because there there are no trees. Zero. We're up above the tree line for New Zealand native trees. Any trees that do grow here aren't native to New Zealand and are immediately removed. That's a little sad; gladed runs are my favorite, it doesn't look like I'll be doing much of that here.

But I'm here to try learn new things. I've always wanted to be decent in the terrain park, but have never really tried. Six weeks should be enough time to gain some proficiency. After exploring the mountain in the morning I decided to start improving my terrain park skills (I probably should have waited a day or two, in retrospect). The boxes (a wide flat surface about 10 feet long) are easy enough to slide straight down and I soon decided to upgrade to the rails (narrow bars that you usually slide down with your board perpendicular to the rail). I've learned, the hard way, that you need to keep your board flat while doing this. Lean back even a little bit and you'll be thrown off it before you know what hit you (and what hits you is either the steal rail or the hard-as-concrete ground next to the rail).

After a couple of falls hard enough to dislodge my goggles I retreated to the boxes. Even then, with my confidence shattered, I took a good fall on the box. Oh, and did I mention that I'm at the baby terrain park? Which means that I'm struggling to master the boxes with a group of 12 year old girls who shriek each time they go over the box (but haven't fallen yet). Sore and realizing that I need to do this for six more weeks, I decide to call it a day.

Home, Sweet Home (July 27th, 2006)
Queenstown, New Zealand







I was taking a power-nap on the flight down to Queenstown when the pilot came on the intercom to announce that we were getting ready for landing. I opened my eyes, looked out the window, and saw an unending range of snow covered mountains. If I had been walking about the view would have put a hop in my step, instead I just smiled like a goofy American tourist.

Although I'm going to be spending the next six weeks here, I actually did almost zero research to see what Queenstown was like. Whenever I hear of ski resort towns, I immediately picture Whistler, Canada. Sadly, this is no Whistler. The most obvious difference is that there isn't any snow in Queenstown. That's not really a huge disappointment, but I was expecting something a little more base of the mountain-ish. It has a nice downtown, though, and it's only a five minute walk from my lodge. Also, no snow means it's actually a little above freezing here (every degree counts). Unfortunately, the common area in our lodge is at about the same temp; there's nothing like getting bundled up so you can go get a glass of water.

I wandered down to the local grocery store and thoroughly enjoyed touring the entire place. I haven't heard of most of the stuff here, and even the familiar things are different. For example, instead of "Rice Crispies" they have "Rice Bubbles". (Oddly enough, they're WAY cheaper than any other box of cereal. Looks like I'll be having a lot of Rice Bubbles down here.) I met Colin and Gavin (the guys who are running the program) and they gave me a quick walk around to meet people from the 11 week course. They also told me that I'm the second American in the group and everyone else is looking forward to having someone else to pick on. :) After a quick hello I returned to my room and attempted to unpack. I managed to empty my snowboard bag before crawling onto my bed. Someone else will be in the room when the course begins, but since I'm here first I get to claim the larger of the two beds. Tomorrow will be my first day on the mountains, I'm exhausted but I can't wait to get up there.

My passport has a new stamp (July 27th, 2006)
Auckland Airport








That was easier than I expected. The flight from SFO was actually quite pleasant. The plane was only about 50% full (at least in the back), so there was a lot of room to stretch out and relax. I managed to get almost a full night's sleep in so aside from losing a day I'm not feeling too out of sorts yet. Of course I've still got a two hour flight down to Queenstown; hopefully I won't completely crash when I get there.

The domestic section of Auckland's airport is pretty small so there isn't much to do now. I was tempted to run into downtown Auckland for an hour or so, but there isn't much going on at 5:00am on a Thursday so I ended up browsing New Zealand magazines instead.

I also discovered an unexpected perk down here: new candy to try. Aside from the New Zealand branded snacks, there are some things I've never heard of, like sour Nerds wrapped in a chewy fruit straw. Yum!

The sun is coming up now, it looks like it's going to be a beautiful day. I had the pleasure of walking from the international gates to the domestic ages (about 10 minutes outside). It's a balmy 4C here, but after sitting in a plane for 13 hours the cool air felt great. I'm not sure that they're heating the terminal either, I'm off to find some hot chocolate.

Next stop: Queenstown!

Takeoff (July 25, 2006)
San Francisco Airport







So here we are. I've promised several people that I'd let them know how much I'm enjoying life down under; this seems like the easiest way to do that. Unfortunately I've never really understood what one is supposed to do with a blog. I'll be happy if I can keep this going for more than a week or so.

Packing up your life for two months isn't as easy as it sounds, but it's kind of therapeutic. It's amazing how much junk you can accumulate in just a couple of years. I'm now on a first name basis with my friends down at the Goodwill donation center and managed to squeeze all of my "permanent" belongings into a minivan and my Audi. So after a month of planning, organizing, and preparing there's nothing left for me to do but enjoy myself. My plane leaves around 9:30 tonight (I mean 2130, I need to start thinking internationally) and 13 hours later I'll be setting foot in New Zealand.

I imagine the differences will be startling. Thanks to the international date line I manage to lose an entire day during my flight (I leave on the 25th but arrive on the 27th). Also it's about 90F (oops, I mean 32C) in the bay area, but will be the middle of winter in New Zealand. It almost feels like I'm losing my summer this year, fortunately I think I've had my fill of summer with the weather we've been through recently. And, of course, one of the first things on my to-do list is to check the toilets, do they really flush in the opposite direction?

Oh yes, one fun story so far: I ran into my first kiwi couple while checking in and, sadly, had to ask them to repeat themselves several times. We'll chalk that up as: New Zealand - 1; Colin - 0. Maybe I should have brought a common phrases book with me to help bridge the gap. However, if nothing else, I'm hoping to come back with some strange 80% New Zealand / 20% Australia accent.

Next stop: Auckland!