What I Did on my Holidays, or Four Skifields in Five Days.
So I just got back from my first real holiday in about four years. And may I say it was worth the wait.
As I spent a week without computer access, let alone internet access, and my hands have long since forgotten how to write longhand, what follows is necessarily memories rather than a diary. Random thoughts in vaguely chronological order.
Having left the EvilBanditMonster in the tender care of debxena, with whom I suspect he gets on far better than he does with me, I sallied forth to the Aucklandia border. By which I mean I was driven there by starfirenz, who also took the time to demonstrate that there is more to Amanda Marshall than just Let It Rain.
...
On the flight down I formulated a theory concerning airline stewardesses, which I call the "stewardess as porn star" theory. It is a well known fact that porn stars (and indeed actors generally, but "stewardess as actor theory" is much less catchy) make up their screen names in an attempt to seem more like porn stars. Bearing that in mind, what do you think the odds are that our four stewardesses were actually named Carley, Denise, Lauren, and Kelly-Ann? I think they have a box of stewardessy nametags up the front of the plane and they each pick one at random when they start their shift.
(A possibly fatal blow was struck to this theory by Lucy, on the flight back up to Auckland. "Lucy" is a little too CS Lewis, a little too Enid Blyton to have been picked out of the Glamorous Names box. Oh well, the mark of a true scientist is a willingness to discard theories that no longer fit the facts.)
...
People who think that flying is boring are absolutely correct - provided they are flying over the seven tenths of the globe covered by water. Otherwise you cannot be bored in a window seat. I had a book with me, but I barely cracked it the whole flight. My favourite moment: looking at Farewell Spit and thinking, wow, I am now further south than I have ever been in my life. And it looks just like it does on the map.
Landing in Queenstown on a clear winter day is a sight that could inspire boredom only in the most jaded. Do it sometime. Improve your life.
...
So there we were in Arrowtown, about ten minutes drive out of Queenstown. There were four of us, henceforth to be known as Minimal-Air, Powderpuff, Mad-Dog (not you Chris) and The Big Easy. First up, a quick trip into Queenstown for two of us to rent ski gear. Then home to sleep. A big day tomorrow. Tomorrow we hit Coronet Peak.
I will now gloat about the weather, and I promise I will never mention it again. Not including days involving air travel, we had seven days in Queenstown, Sunday to Saturday. Monday and Saturday snowed. Tuesday was fine but a little cloudy at times. The other four days were blue sky from one horizon to the other. Perfect visibility, fresh snow on top of a massive base, winds light if any. Glee!
Anyway, back to Sunday's trip to Coronet Peak.
Once upon a time I wasn't bad on skis. Reasonably confident on the blue (intermediate) runs and occasionally edging my way into the black (advanced) ones. Unfortunately "once upon a time" was well over ten years ago. As a result, my mind remembered what to do but my body was clueless, a fact brought home to me in classic style when I sauntered gung-ho onto a blue run and expected to handle it the way I used to back on Mt Ruapehu.
I like to think I executed a perfect yoko-ukemi in the middle of the slope. However, I hit the back of my head on a surprisingly solid patch of powder and I really don't remember. Oh well. Yoko-ukemi is my story and I'm sticking to it. It was around this point that I realised that I had better lose some of the gung-ho if I wanted to survive the day, let alone the week. I spent the rest of Coronet Peak (and, to be fair, much of the rest of the week) with Powderpuff on the green runs slowly getting my technique back. Thus I earned my nickname The Big Easy, an appellation I was to wear proudly for the rest of the week despite my immediate smartass response upon hearing it ("That's what she said.")
Also not helping my skiing ability was an error I had made the previous night. Learn from my mistakes, people. People will tell you that it is a Bad Thing for your ski boots to be too loose, and this is no doubt correct advice. However, what they don't tell you is that too tight is Even Worse. If you have to make a choice, go for the loose ones. I took my medieval torture devices back to the rental counter at Outdoor Sports on Tuesday night and exchanged them, and my enjoyment of the rest of the week was improved immeasurably thereby.
...
Sunday evening was the six-year wedding anniversary of Powderpuff and Minimal-Air, so we went out to the swankiest restaurant in Arrowtown to celebrate. Most excellent, as long as you don't look at the bill. (Footnote: Of course, that describes just about everything down at forty five south. Like the t-shirt says: Ski Yer Wallet Out. I won't be mentioning money again, but suffice it to say the ol' bank account is feeling considerably less crowded this week.)
Monday was a rest and replenishment day, for the snow on the mountains and for my aching muscles at home. I am happy to say we did very little. Slept in, jammed (Minimal-Air and I both brought our guitars along, and Powderpuff her flute), went shopping and divvied up who was going to cook what when, wandered in to Arrowtown for a look around, and just generally hung out.
...
I am not a beer connoisseur. In the normal run of things it is not my favourite beverage. But there are times when the situation calls for nothing else, when the right beer is simply indispensable. I offer as Exhibit A a pint of Cardrona Ale, drawn from the tap in the world-famous-in-New-Zealand Cardrona pub, before an open fire, having just come down from a blusterous Tuesday at Treble Cone. In such circumstances it is the Shelby GT of beers: gone in sixty seconds.
That is my strongest memory of Tuesday. Treble Cone, despite boasting the longest green run in New Zealand, is far more geared to the advanced skier. Minimal-Air and Mad-Dog (not you Chris) had a great time, but I spent the day feeling like I was about to ski right off the edge of the mountain. That plus the aching feet and I was quite happy to call it a day.
...
Wednesday, on the other hand, was spent at Cardrona, my favourite of the four skifields by a considerable margin. Wide open, good variety in terrain and difficulty, spectacular views (photos to follow once Powderpuff emails them to me), feet that didn't hurt, legs that were starting to get the hang of it again... basically a perfect day. Followed, of course, by another pint of Eleanor Cardrona Ale.
I was all for heading back there again on Thursday, but Mad-Dog (not you Chris) had never skied the Remarkables before and was dead set on remedying this failing. This time we did not attempt the drive up to the skifield ourselves. The road up to the Remarkables has a vicious reputation and the tyre chains that would have made our two-wheel-drive fit to navigate it were not, as it turned out, the correct size. So we hung out at the foot of the mountain and waited an hour for the shuttle.
In terms of pure skiing Thursday was my best day. If you plotted my skiing on a graph, there would be one line showing the steady increase in my ability, and another showing the steady decline in what my leg muscles were willing to put up with. The two lines intersected on Thursday. Whee! Not the best skifield, but definitely the best skiing.
...
Friday was a unanimous decision to go back to Cardrona. This time I started pushing myself a bit more. Whereas on Sunday my legs didn't know how, on Friday they knew but they resented it. But we are The Big Easy and we do not take back-chat from mere limbs. Back over the bumps we go! Face first into the snow on the other side we go! Now, do we dodge the tailgating snowboarder or do we somehow try to maybe catch him?
Met the others for lunch at the Happy Noodle Bar to discover that Minimal-Air and Mad-Dog (not you Chris) had lost their command of the English language. It turned out they had at some point decided to reinvent rhyming slang and were speaking nothing but. The fact that there were four empty Britneys (Britney Spears, geddit?) on the table when I arrived may have had something to do with it. Powderpuff was eating her noodles with a stoic, "this too shall pass" expression.
...
We knew Saturday was not going to be skiing weather, and I for one wouldn't have gone up even if it had been. Another sleep in, another relaxing day.
Except that Mad-Dog (not you Chris) decided it was a good day for a short hike. So we all trooped up the Tobin Track that links... um... well, in my case it links the bottom of the hill with about halfway up the hill, because it was at that point that I decided my Boy Sprout days were well and truly behind me and turned around. While waiting for the others at the bottom of the hill, I passed the time lurking on a bridge, gazing into the Arrow River and watching for a gold nugget to swim by. They do that in the Arrow, you know. You can see some on display in town.
Later we walked along the river bank, and Mad-Dog (not you Chris) took it upon himself to swing out over the river on a rope. This is a river, you understand, that melted approximately yesterday. And a rope that, when at rest, is about four feet out of reach of the river bank. We had to throw rocks at it to start it swinging so we could grab it. It was at this point that Mad-Dog (not you Chris) started to have second thoughts, but when a crowd of seven kids with an aggregate age of about forty five gathers to watch, you're pretty much committed.
No splash was heard, nor hypothermia contracted. He swung out and after a few near misses was caught and hauled in by Minimal-Air, holding on to me, holding on to a large tree. We decided the tree deserved most of the credit for the feat.
...
Finally, we get to Sunday's flight out of Queenstown. I spent about two and a half hours with nothing better to do than send random text messages to people, for reasons that will become apparent.
1300. Hi Deb! Just in the security queue now. Flight appears to be all on schedule. See you at Qantas terminal at 1515!
1410. We haven't taken off yet. Apparently the airport is experiencing Weather, something they weren't anticipating. Needless to say, there is going to be a delay of unspecified duration.
1455. Would you believe we're still sitting on the runway? The clouds are too low, the plane can't take off. It is debatable whether we'll get out of here today.
1545. Well, the bad news is we're still on the tarmac. The good news is, they just brought me a small pastrami sandwich, thus removing for the moment my desire to consume one of my fellow passengers. Ah, the joys of modern air travel.
1550. We might be about to leave! Fingers crossed!
1736. We've made it back to Auckland! Yippee skippee!
And here in Auckland I am. All in all, an excellent adventure. Much kudos to Minimal-Air and Powderpuff for getting the use of the Arrowtown house and arranging the whole thing.
And if last night at work is anything to go by I think I'll be ready for another holiday in... oh, maybe a couple of weeks.
As I spent a week without computer access, let alone internet access, and my hands have long since forgotten how to write longhand, what follows is necessarily memories rather than a diary. Random thoughts in vaguely chronological order.
Having left the EvilBanditMonster in the tender care of debxena, with whom I suspect he gets on far better than he does with me, I sallied forth to the Aucklandia border. By which I mean I was driven there by starfirenz, who also took the time to demonstrate that there is more to Amanda Marshall than just Let It Rain.
...
On the flight down I formulated a theory concerning airline stewardesses, which I call the "stewardess as porn star" theory. It is a well known fact that porn stars (and indeed actors generally, but "stewardess as actor theory" is much less catchy) make up their screen names in an attempt to seem more like porn stars. Bearing that in mind, what do you think the odds are that our four stewardesses were actually named Carley, Denise, Lauren, and Kelly-Ann? I think they have a box of stewardessy nametags up the front of the plane and they each pick one at random when they start their shift.
(A possibly fatal blow was struck to this theory by Lucy, on the flight back up to Auckland. "Lucy" is a little too CS Lewis, a little too Enid Blyton to have been picked out of the Glamorous Names box. Oh well, the mark of a true scientist is a willingness to discard theories that no longer fit the facts.)
...
People who think that flying is boring are absolutely correct - provided they are flying over the seven tenths of the globe covered by water. Otherwise you cannot be bored in a window seat. I had a book with me, but I barely cracked it the whole flight. My favourite moment: looking at Farewell Spit and thinking, wow, I am now further south than I have ever been in my life. And it looks just like it does on the map.
Landing in Queenstown on a clear winter day is a sight that could inspire boredom only in the most jaded. Do it sometime. Improve your life.
...
So there we were in Arrowtown, about ten minutes drive out of Queenstown. There were four of us, henceforth to be known as Minimal-Air, Powderpuff, Mad-Dog (not you Chris) and The Big Easy. First up, a quick trip into Queenstown for two of us to rent ski gear. Then home to sleep. A big day tomorrow. Tomorrow we hit Coronet Peak.
I will now gloat about the weather, and I promise I will never mention it again. Not including days involving air travel, we had seven days in Queenstown, Sunday to Saturday. Monday and Saturday snowed. Tuesday was fine but a little cloudy at times. The other four days were blue sky from one horizon to the other. Perfect visibility, fresh snow on top of a massive base, winds light if any. Glee!
Anyway, back to Sunday's trip to Coronet Peak.
Once upon a time I wasn't bad on skis. Reasonably confident on the blue (intermediate) runs and occasionally edging my way into the black (advanced) ones. Unfortunately "once upon a time" was well over ten years ago. As a result, my mind remembered what to do but my body was clueless, a fact brought home to me in classic style when I sauntered gung-ho onto a blue run and expected to handle it the way I used to back on Mt Ruapehu.
I like to think I executed a perfect yoko-ukemi in the middle of the slope. However, I hit the back of my head on a surprisingly solid patch of powder and I really don't remember. Oh well. Yoko-ukemi is my story and I'm sticking to it. It was around this point that I realised that I had better lose some of the gung-ho if I wanted to survive the day, let alone the week. I spent the rest of Coronet Peak (and, to be fair, much of the rest of the week) with Powderpuff on the green runs slowly getting my technique back. Thus I earned my nickname The Big Easy, an appellation I was to wear proudly for the rest of the week despite my immediate smartass response upon hearing it ("That's what she said.")
Also not helping my skiing ability was an error I had made the previous night. Learn from my mistakes, people. People will tell you that it is a Bad Thing for your ski boots to be too loose, and this is no doubt correct advice. However, what they don't tell you is that too tight is Even Worse. If you have to make a choice, go for the loose ones. I took my medieval torture devices back to the rental counter at Outdoor Sports on Tuesday night and exchanged them, and my enjoyment of the rest of the week was improved immeasurably thereby.
...
Sunday evening was the six-year wedding anniversary of Powderpuff and Minimal-Air, so we went out to the swankiest restaurant in Arrowtown to celebrate. Most excellent, as long as you don't look at the bill. (Footnote: Of course, that describes just about everything down at forty five south. Like the t-shirt says: Ski Yer Wallet Out. I won't be mentioning money again, but suffice it to say the ol' bank account is feeling considerably less crowded this week.)
Monday was a rest and replenishment day, for the snow on the mountains and for my aching muscles at home. I am happy to say we did very little. Slept in, jammed (Minimal-Air and I both brought our guitars along, and Powderpuff her flute), went shopping and divvied up who was going to cook what when, wandered in to Arrowtown for a look around, and just generally hung out.
...
I am not a beer connoisseur. In the normal run of things it is not my favourite beverage. But there are times when the situation calls for nothing else, when the right beer is simply indispensable. I offer as Exhibit A a pint of Cardrona Ale, drawn from the tap in the world-famous-in-New-Zealand Cardrona pub, before an open fire, having just come down from a blusterous Tuesday at Treble Cone. In such circumstances it is the Shelby GT of beers: gone in sixty seconds.
That is my strongest memory of Tuesday. Treble Cone, despite boasting the longest green run in New Zealand, is far more geared to the advanced skier. Minimal-Air and Mad-Dog (not you Chris) had a great time, but I spent the day feeling like I was about to ski right off the edge of the mountain. That plus the aching feet and I was quite happy to call it a day.
...
Wednesday, on the other hand, was spent at Cardrona, my favourite of the four skifields by a considerable margin. Wide open, good variety in terrain and difficulty, spectacular views (photos to follow once Powderpuff emails them to me), feet that didn't hurt, legs that were starting to get the hang of it again... basically a perfect day. Followed, of course, by another pint of Eleanor Cardrona Ale.
I was all for heading back there again on Thursday, but Mad-Dog (not you Chris) had never skied the Remarkables before and was dead set on remedying this failing. This time we did not attempt the drive up to the skifield ourselves. The road up to the Remarkables has a vicious reputation and the tyre chains that would have made our two-wheel-drive fit to navigate it were not, as it turned out, the correct size. So we hung out at the foot of the mountain and waited an hour for the shuttle.
In terms of pure skiing Thursday was my best day. If you plotted my skiing on a graph, there would be one line showing the steady increase in my ability, and another showing the steady decline in what my leg muscles were willing to put up with. The two lines intersected on Thursday. Whee! Not the best skifield, but definitely the best skiing.
...
Friday was a unanimous decision to go back to Cardrona. This time I started pushing myself a bit more. Whereas on Sunday my legs didn't know how, on Friday they knew but they resented it. But we are The Big Easy and we do not take back-chat from mere limbs. Back over the bumps we go! Face first into the snow on the other side we go! Now, do we dodge the tailgating snowboarder or do we somehow try to maybe catch him?
Met the others for lunch at the Happy Noodle Bar to discover that Minimal-Air and Mad-Dog (not you Chris) had lost their command of the English language. It turned out they had at some point decided to reinvent rhyming slang and were speaking nothing but. The fact that there were four empty Britneys (Britney Spears, geddit?) on the table when I arrived may have had something to do with it. Powderpuff was eating her noodles with a stoic, "this too shall pass" expression.
...
We knew Saturday was not going to be skiing weather, and I for one wouldn't have gone up even if it had been. Another sleep in, another relaxing day.
Except that Mad-Dog (not you Chris) decided it was a good day for a short hike. So we all trooped up the Tobin Track that links... um... well, in my case it links the bottom of the hill with about halfway up the hill, because it was at that point that I decided my Boy Sprout days were well and truly behind me and turned around. While waiting for the others at the bottom of the hill, I passed the time lurking on a bridge, gazing into the Arrow River and watching for a gold nugget to swim by. They do that in the Arrow, you know. You can see some on display in town.
Later we walked along the river bank, and Mad-Dog (not you Chris) took it upon himself to swing out over the river on a rope. This is a river, you understand, that melted approximately yesterday. And a rope that, when at rest, is about four feet out of reach of the river bank. We had to throw rocks at it to start it swinging so we could grab it. It was at this point that Mad-Dog (not you Chris) started to have second thoughts, but when a crowd of seven kids with an aggregate age of about forty five gathers to watch, you're pretty much committed.
No splash was heard, nor hypothermia contracted. He swung out and after a few near misses was caught and hauled in by Minimal-Air, holding on to me, holding on to a large tree. We decided the tree deserved most of the credit for the feat.
...
Finally, we get to Sunday's flight out of Queenstown. I spent about two and a half hours with nothing better to do than send random text messages to people, for reasons that will become apparent.
1300. Hi Deb! Just in the security queue now. Flight appears to be all on schedule. See you at Qantas terminal at 1515!
1410. We haven't taken off yet. Apparently the airport is experiencing Weather, something they weren't anticipating. Needless to say, there is going to be a delay of unspecified duration.
1455. Would you believe we're still sitting on the runway? The clouds are too low, the plane can't take off. It is debatable whether we'll get out of here today.
1545. Well, the bad news is we're still on the tarmac. The good news is, they just brought me a small pastrami sandwich, thus removing for the moment my desire to consume one of my fellow passengers. Ah, the joys of modern air travel.
1550. We might be about to leave! Fingers crossed!
1736. We've made it back to Auckland! Yippee skippee!
And here in Auckland I am. All in all, an excellent adventure. Much kudos to Minimal-Air and Powderpuff for getting the use of the Arrowtown house and arranging the whole thing.
And if last night at work is anything to go by I think I'll be ready for another holiday in... oh, maybe a couple of weeks.