So I did it, I left Queenstown to live the dream. I snowboard from work, to work, from home, to home....I eat and I sleep (occasionally), but that is my life right now, and it will be until the start of October....perfect!
So pretty much straight after I wrote my last blog, I quit
my job at the cinema, I did offer to do my shifts that they’d already given to
me, but they told me not to bother....sweet. So went on to plan my exit out of
Queenstown. The following day was snowboard shopping, walking all around
Queenstown viewing boards, and sorting out my last few things. Before having my
last night out in Queenstown again with James and Andy.
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| My penultimate night in Queenstown, looking over Lake Wakatipu |
I was so excited to be leaving Queenstown (not that there’s anything wrong with Queenstown, it’d be an awesome holiday destination (if money wasn’t an issue) but screw tryna live there), so excited in fact that I did over sleep and nearly missed my coach ride outta there! I did make it, like bang on time, and off I went on my 6 hour journey from Queenstown through the middle of New Zealand’s South Island to Ashburton, stopping off at some amazing spots along the way.
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| On route from Queenstown to Ashburton |
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| Mt Cook in the distance, New Zealand's tallest mountain |
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| I think this was around the James Mackenzie district (which, by coincidence, is the same name of the Area Manager at Mt Hutt). |
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| Lake Tekapo for a stop off |
It’s awesome, all the coach drivers over here aren’t
grumpy....not only that, but they also become tour guides, they love it!
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| The beginning of my first ever hitch hike: Ashburton - Methven |
I arrived in Ashburton, then had to hitch a ride from
Ashburton to Methven as the buses had stopped running (about 50 minutes prior
to me getting there and I wasn’t walking 34km with all my things! Thanks to
Gary and Chris for the ride. I arrived in Methven and pretty much just set
myself at my hostel for the night, Mt Hutt Bunkhouse. Nice early start the next
day for my enrolment with my new employers
NZSki, before heading up
Mt Hutt for my new
home/workplace for the rest of winter and into spring. My living arrangements
are different to say the least, we have our rooms at the Mt Hutt Base, we have
our living area/kitchen, plus toilets, which can and are used by most staff
through the day, the punters bar, Huber’s Hutt is just down the hall way, and
the staff offices are just down the other hallway. Plus we get groomers or
other night staff randomly in our living area any given time....I try to
remember not to walk around in just my boxers.
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| My room for one night at Bunkhouse |
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| The sun setting over Bunkhouse (to the right). |
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| My first views of Mt Hutt |
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| My back garden |
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| The view from my room on my first day here |
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| Our living room on the right, and the back of Huber's Hutt Kitchen |
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| My room on the right |
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| Our Kitchen/living room area |
Long story short, I spent the next 8 days working, eating,
occasionally sleeping, and snowboarding. Living up here with Eric (my Aussie
boss, been up here for 22 seasons), Kerry (a Kiwi night watchman, who’s up here
when the weather’s bad (basically if the weather’s good, he’s off but if it’s
bad he’s job is making sure all the roads are safe and clear, basically pretty crucial)
and been here for 29 years (with some awesome stories of years gone by)), and
Antonia (the other German Night Custodian, who started here at the beginning of
the season and has just left last week).
Urm, photo dumps really.
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| This is the top of the summit, on what may have been my first run? |
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| Top of the summit on a much clearer day |
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| Behind Mt Hutt |
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| The Base in the middle of the picture |
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| My job - it aint too great (the mornings are better) but the benefits are worth it...I try and get out of doing the toilets as much as possible, I'd much rather do the vacuuming in the evening whilst listening to my music or practising my Spanish (I am trying again). |
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| Early morning start |
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| Working hard....but there's no snow in your plough.... |
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| Antonia |
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| The view from my room on a not-so-clear day |
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| The Base, with Huber's Hutt on the left |
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| Heading off to South Face |
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| Double Diamond Black |
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| I did make it down, and that was the first day (I believe) that South Face has been opened this season |
My Room...with some things left over from previous workers!
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| My bloody accent! My work name tag originally said "Mike, England", but I asked if I could change it to "Mike, Southampton", "Yeah of course you can Mike, you can have whatever you want, sorry where was it?", "Southampton please", "Sorry, where?".....so I slow down what I am saying, and this is what happens. PS, this has happened in America, Canada, Australia, and now New Zealand! I couldn't be bothered to change it, so this is my name tag! |
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| A poster left in my room that shows pretty much the whole of Mt Hutt... |
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| ...And this picture shows the runs. "YOU ARE HERE" = My gaff! |
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| Keas found up the mountain, the only parrot in New Zealand (I think) and only found on the South Island...they'll eat anything. And are fun to shot with a water pistol (for their own good). |
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| The Base once everyone has left for the day (my room is the 2nd window from left, from the row of 4 windows in the right side of the building). |
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| The base before everyone arrives in the morning |
First "weekend" off, had a night out in the nightlife that is
Methven (put it this way, the conversations were that there was a DJ playing at
a bar here, no one cared what the DJ was, just the fact that there was a DJ was
enough) and it was good to finally see everyone out of work. After falling
asleep on Tom’s sofa, passed out with a bass guitar in my lap. We chilled round
Ashburton before tryna check out Mt Somers, we found it, but we also found some
other awesome hotspots to check out at future dates.
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| Sooooooo many sheep! About 5 million people in New Zealand, and about 50 million sheep! |
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| Stick to the sheep! |
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| Our random find: Hakatere Conservation Park |
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| Typical Kiwi attitude, as we pulled over the dude pulled over to check if we were OK, that's not the first time that's happened to me since I've been here. |
Headed back up the mountain for pretty much the same.
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| On route back up Mt Hutt |
The joys of living up here, along with the free food (well
-$50 from my wage each week), free accommodation, free lift pass, my bed being
2 minutes walk from 2 of the 3 lifts, other night time activities that don’t
get published, the sunrises and sunsets, my bedroom view = loving it! I only
spent about $2.50 up here (I've found more money than that up here) in my first 8 days, but I pretty much trebled that as
soon as I got off the mountain....on beer, of course!
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| A couple of days before the full moon...this picture really doesn't show how amazing it really looked! |
My
weekend off after that, was very short lived, as I covered an extra night
shift, and involved riding back down to Lake Tekapo for ice skating, hot pools and
Thai food.
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| Aaron and Tom skimming rocks....at first anyway! |
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| A different view from my bedroom window one random morning |
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| Dedication, waking up for the Saints game...again! That's "am" and that's at half time! I have to wake up at about 5:30-5:45ish! |
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| It looked so good at one stage, I did the same thing two weeks prior to watch the same thing happen against Man City.....if you don't know what happened then you don't need to know. |
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| Last Tuesday we had another snow dump, so I headed straight to the South face! |
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| Well, I'm sorta getting there....still riding it and loving it though! |
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| The top of South Face on a much clearer day. |
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| Just to prove that I do snowboard! |
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| !?! - Genesis - ?!? |
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| Heading down to the half-pipe |
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| I did ride it a few times, I aint great at all, but I love it (this picture aint too great either, I'll admit, but it's proof enough....hopefully) |
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| Just before Antonia's last run last Wednesday! Well, actually we convinced her to do one more after that one! It wasn't too hard! |
And the weekend just passed was a lot longer than usual, we
closed the Mountain on Thursday so I managed to get off of here earlier than
usual, and we ended up being closed for 5 days. Thursday was just a chill out
day, followed by a night out with pretty much all the Mt Hutt staff. On Friday
we had a road trip and BBQ at Hakatere where Tom and I discovered a fortnight
prior. It was soooo windy down there. Saturday involved a road trip down to Christchurch for the casino,
drinking on the way back (which I have no pictures of to put on my blog!),
watching the rugby, then I got a last minute call to see if I could get back up
the mountain to help out first thing in the morning, meaning Day 4, Sunday,
started with me clearing snow up here before hearing the mountain was closed,
so I headed off of here again and back into Christchurch for music shop hunting
with Tom. Sunday, 9
th September, was also two years since I left
England. Back up here again on Sunday
night only to wake up and found that the mountain was closed again when I woke
up on Monday (Day 5) so headed straight off the mountain again for a road trip
to Timaru (arranged for the Mt Hutt staff). Timaru may not be the most exciting
of places to visit in New Zealand, but we made it fun, and I can say that I don’t
need to go there again!
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| The sun rising as I was coming off of the mountain on Thursday morning |
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| Again at Hakatere on Friday for Antonia's last day in Methven. |
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| Nice one Ali |
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| A bit further down the road from Hakatere |
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| From the Base on Sunday morning, that's not a cloud on the summit, that's the wind blowing away the awesome powder that was dumped over Saturday night, I reckon we had about 20cm when I arrived up here at about 1am Saturday Night / Sunday morning, only to be blown away by 145km/h (at times) winds over the next two days! |
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| Heading down the mountain again! |
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| Mt Hutt |
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| The snow blowing off of Mt Hutt on Sunday |
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| Driving back into Methven on Sunday evening |
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| The glory that is the walkway to Timaru beach |
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| The glory that is Timaru beach...I think we hit the wrong spot! |
Days like today are a prime example of why I love being up here. I went out snowboarding this morning as the powder is pretty good, but the visibility was horrible today, so after a few runs I gave up and walked home and just chilled out and watched TV. I then walked out of our living room to see the sun reflecting off of our hall way floor, could it be that it's cleared, I quickly ran out (as I still had all my gear on) grabbed my board, jumped on the lift and got an awesome run in, just in time to see the clouds cover up the mountain again, so headed straight back to my living room! I usually literally end my last run of many days at my door steps, undo my bindings and walk up the stairs and I'm home! I know I'm bragging a bit (and I'm sort of sorry, but not really), but this really is living a dream!
I took these photos tonight, this is our canteen for staff and for punters, just downstairs. The reason I've put them in here is because this is my new run (it's usually lit up a lot better through the day but I only leave a couple on). It might sound like a weird thing to say but I think of my travels sometimes of the runs I had, from my run to the gym from home through Hedge End village, to running from my home in the east of Providence over the river through the city to my gym and back again. My runs in Duvall were through the back roads and through the forests, followed by my runs in Jasper that would often involve running around the lakes and through the woods seeing some amazing wildlife at times. Then onto Brisbane were I would sometimes run home from work from West End, along the Brisbane river over the Kangaroo Point cliffs, but more often then not that would be included in my loop which would also include running over the Story Bridge, along the city board-walks and through the Botanic Gardens. And my last run, and definitely my hardest, running up Queenstown Hill for amazing views. Onto this, this is probably the most scenic amazing place that I've lived and cos of the weather up here (it changes drastically, quickly and frequently) and it's dark by the time everyone's gone and I've finished work, all I do is set my timer and run random laps around the tables and around the stairs. I was never over taken by anyone on any of my runs in Brisbane (unless I was, but then overtook them later), wish I could say the same about my snowboarding here!
One last thing, anyone who has ever lived with me will understand this!
We hardly had any cereal in our pantry when I first got here, and apprently they nver really bothered! These pictures are after less than a week of my being here......them bags are 3Kg each, and nearly gone!
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| America gave me an addiction to Root Beer that Canada fed into me very well! Australia has now giving me an addiction to Milo that New Zealand is now feeding! This was full when I started, it's pretty much empty now (I haven't quite been here four weeks yet! |
Just under four weeks left here (potentially 5 if we stay open an extra week, which may happen) so I’ll try not to put too many photos of Mt Hutt up here on my
next post, but it is pretty awesome up here!
