Friday 7 August 2009

This is not a proper ski blog with pictures of boarders doing flips and stuff, but a sort of photo deposity place, so if you want a blog that is just about ski-ing, you have arrived at the WRONG BLOG. This one is just somewhere to put my photos for my friends. I'm sorry, but the identities of those who were photographed must remain secret, because their agents have not been asked, and I don't want to breach any copyright laws.

I innocently booked a week's skiing at Iwikau, thinking I would be working at night, and slithering by day, quietly, unobstrusively, and inconspicuously. I prefer to travel incognito because I don't do what my hairdresser tells me to, and I don't want him to find out I haven't been using product on my hair. Or anything else for that matter. Actually it's a wonderful mess, and I love it like that. Anyway, where was I (sorry, got distracted). Okay. Diary stuff. Arrived at Ohakune on Friday night, having fought my way through Otorohanga's McDonald's and the windy bits of road between Te Kuiti and Taumaranui (I'm from the south island, so if I didn't spell it right please be forgiving). Otorohanga is very proud of the new McDonalds which apparently created 70 jobs so it can't be too bad. That's possibly its best feature.

It rained at Ohakune so I worked and went up the next day. Working means writing stuff on my computer, not selling newspapers on the street, in case you were wondering. Not that it matters really. I was incredibly nervous about driving on the mountain road in case I made a wrong move that had Rover and I ending up in a vortex somewhere in the middle of the north island, amongst old cars and old skiers that didn't make it up a mountain road. Nothing went wrong except for my indecision, which manifested as me stopping the car on the side of the road and walking up and down several times trying to work out what to do. I get nervous sometimes and end up in a sort of cycle of not doing anything. It can be quite tedious. Eventually someone took pity on me and told me to drive up to the top, so I did, becuase I like to please. I sort of slipped into a position in DayPark Number one (overnight at the rear thank you), grabbed my stuff and ran up to Iwikau. Well, took the chair actually, and skied down.

The photo of the top of the page is of Iwikau lodge (hut?), which as you can see is a place to sleep on the mountain, with proper mountain air and sunsets and rocky crags and stuff. I love it.

It snowed and did windy stuff for the first couple of days so Jen took us (Janice and me) through Ski-tuning 101, which includes Edges 101 and Waxing 101 sub-components. Now I have done the course I am allowed to put ST101 after my name, but I won't use it as I don't want to abuse the privilege. I wish she had shown us Petex.103 because I ran over a rock today. Jen is an expert and a good teacher and Janice and I took it all in. After that was over we had a boot clinic and learned how to do up our boots but it turns up my ones wouldn't do up properly and leak, but it was good finding out stuff. The leak is probably a function of their colour - all my other gear is red and works perfectly well. I should never have bought blue boots. In case you were wondering, they are Nordicas. I include a very poor pictorial rendition (photo) in cased Mr Nordica finds my blog and wants to replace them.

Some time in the middle of the week we went to Turoa because we were getting frustrated with a lack of skiing, and word was that Turoa was good. I got bowled over by a boarder, who left a small brown stain on my new helmet. Perhaps he was nervous too.
I have since removed the sign on my helmet saying 10 points for an old lady. I don't know who put it there but I think it was in bad taste.

Anyway, this was supposed to be about photos, so here they are.
This is what it looks like going to Turoa from the back seat. Becks couldn't take many photos because she was either talking (she's a Gemini) or looking at the road, but she did take one - I attach the evidence.

Some people weren't very productive in the ski waxing arena, and others were very dedicated.....

This is Jeff being dedicated.... and a picture of Becks, Janice and Evan helping.

It turns out my new friends had eagley feelings ..... here they are figuring out how to get airborne. Of course eventually they figured it out and up they went. Apparently this was the first time four women had flown at Whakapapa on the same day. A sort of ladies' day I suppose, though we didn't bring a plate. Didn't matter - no-one wore a tie anyway.
Don't you love the one of Becks leaaving? I was very sad and had to wipe my eyes when they went because they were all so lovely.

Rover was quite exhausted by the entire expedition, having spent her holiday in a sort of igloo-style garage. It took a Welllington teacher, a schoolboy called luke (yay - thanks Luke) and eleven Saudi Arabian tourists to dig and pull her out.