Just some pictures from our 2 weeks of vacation so far. Seen some beautiful sights and scenery and have had some great times. One more week until we fly to Australia!!
Wednesday, October 28, 2009
Saturday, October 17, 2009
vacation vacation vacation (ash)
Finally done on the mountain and we're back in the swing of things with vacationing and traveling. Packed up all our gear and headed out on Monday Oct 12th in a car of 2 friends also headed to Wellington. It was like 'Country Comes to Town' when we finally got to the city! We shared a hostel room with the 3 guys from St. Louis and all 7 of us went out to explore the city and grab a few beers at the Mac's Brewery. First thing I did though was walk straight to Starbucks and get a raspberry mocha. Heaven! I knew I missed Starbucks, but it was even better than I expected! Can't get too used to the pampering though, we need to stay on a budget to get through 2 months of traveling without working. Tuesday we walked around the entire city taking in the sights and sounds. Biggest city we've been to in over 4 months! It was a tiring day but very fulfilling. We made dinner with Darran and Laura at the hostel and hit the hay early. Wednesday we hopped a bus around 10am to go across the harbor to look at a few cars. After another few hours of walking around we finally got to the one we originally went to see and bought it. 1996 Mitsubishi station wagon! What a big moment, our first car we've bought together and it's a POS we've now named the Gray Goblin. We'll call her Gob for short. So far she's served us really well because we've spent three nights or 'camping' and sleeping in the back. It allows us to get somewhere and scope out the area and chose a spot to camp at later.
Thursday we were in the Marlborough region so we spend a good, full day wine tasting. The area is known for it's whites, specifically Riesling and Pinot Gris. Whites aren't our normal choice to drink, but it was a great day and educational. We hit the road in the late afternoon so we could make it to our next stop before dark and we finally hit the coast and the Pacific Ocean. What a beautiful sight! Driving along there were snow capped mountains on our right and a sparkling blue and turquoise sea on our left. We stayed in Kaikoura for the night after cooking dinner at a picnic table over looking the small town and expansive coastline. A beautiful setting to wake up to! After a (fun) day of driving in the misty rain we went to some thermal pools in the mountains, such a needed relaxing afternoon!! Drove on a bit further to camp at a campground in the mountains outside of Christchurch. Would have been nice if the weather cooperated, but the misty rain was refreshing and we woke up early and headed to Christchurch....it's another big city, but nothing spectacular. We splurged on a nice hotel room and fancy dinner to celebrate our wedding anniversary and we've just enjoyed staying in and watching tv and enjoying the finer things in life that we've missed over the past few months.
Got to get up and get going today now. We'll head out on the peninsula near by to do some sightseeing and more of what we do best, travel around and relax!
Wednesday, September 30, 2009
starting the home stretch of work
Well, time is almost up here on the mountain. The snow is dying a slow death and people are starting to head to the beach instead of going skiing. We hiked to the crater 2 weeks ago and got fresh tracks down the mountain and I got to work as a lifty on a T-Bar for the day...unfortunately it rained, snowed, was windy and sunny and cloudy all in that same day and it wasn't too busy. Many of our co-workers who were contracted through Oct 11th have been let go early and will be leaving on the 4th instead. The beginners area, Happy Valley, is the lowest area on the mtn and will be closing after this weekend. All of a sudden we'll go from around 50 lifties to about 25! I'll be the last ticket checker standing. Just like Connor MacLeod, "There can be only one!". Anyhow, we're starting to figure out what we'll do on our travels across the country and beyond...never much for planning ahead I guess! We've had a great time up here but just can't wait to get to the beach and relax and then go out and explore and see the beauty everyone says exists around here.
Our plan is to leave here and head down to Wellington, which is the southern coast of the North Island. From there we'll catch a ferry across to the South Island and head down the eastern coast back up a little on the west to see the glaciers then back up to where we started. The plan is to do this in about 2 and a half weeks. With our other week and a half we'll travel back up the North Island's east coast up to the far north before flying our of Auckland on Nov 6th. We hear there are some great beaches up there!
Not sure if we'll but a car before the ferry or not (it costs about $200 to take it across each time) but we'll do a lot of car camping and living on the cheap so we can spend our money on the fun stuff like bungee jumping, zorbing, diving the Great Barrier Reef and all the fun stuff we'll do in Australia! We'll try and get wireless internet where we can so that we can stay in touch. and we'll try and be a little better with updating this so that you all know what's going on in our world. We hope you'll keep in touch too and send us updates!!!
Saturday, August 29, 2009
finally a new update
It's been a month since we updated...oops! Hasn't been to eventful in the past month. Not much to report. We've had a few bad weather days that kept the mountain closed with bad wind and no vis. Then we both got colds and are still trying to get better. Ashley did the video report for the mountain website on Friday morning. You can find it at www.mtruapehu.com Bottom right of the home page there's a "video and pics" box to click on. It's a quick snippit, but it was fun. Thursday night we had our lift operations mid season "jug night" which had a "punter" theme. Punters are basically the people you see up here in retro gear and/or inappropriate clothing. Such as jeans shorts and flip flops in the snow. You'd be surprised to see how many people come up to sight see in warm weather clothes and even high heals!! 90% of these peopel are asian and don't speak english and it's just so funny to try and get them on and off chair lifts!!
We're still hoping for some September snow storms here because we've had a lot of rain on the mountian lately and are already dealing with slushy, spring skiing conditions. We need some snow to keep the mountain open until mid October so we can finish out the work season!
We've finally booked our flight to Australia in November. We're going to spend a month in NZ after the season ends (OCt 11-Nov6). 3 weeks touring the South Island then a week back up in the north near Auckland and the Bay of Plenty and the coastal beaches. It will be so nice to get back to the sun, sand and ocean!! In Australia our plan is to fly to Cairns (upper north) and start our trip with a week's dive trip on the Great Barrier Reef. Then we'll make our way by bus down the east coast to Sydney. We have some friends here that are either from Australia or have spent a lot of time there so they're helping us plan our trip. Should be a great experience and a lot of fun. We'll make sure to work on our tans so that we show up at Christmas nice and gloden.
We haven't yet heard anything final with our plans back in the States but we're still thinking Charlston, SC is where we'll end up. Hopefully we'll spend 2-3 weeks roadtripping from CA and stopping for a few ski breaks along the way! Christmas and New Years in Tahoe this year again finally!!! Then off through Utah to visit some friends working in Park City, then across Colorado and through the middle of the US ending up in FL to see family, pick up our stuff from storage and move. Hopefully that'll put us settled down by February.
:-) Hopefully it won't be too hard to settle down after all these adventures!!
Monday, July 27, 2009
where we live
found a link about where we live right now and thought it's an easy way to share and show what it's like here:
We had some more crappy weather last week and Daniel got the flu so was out for a good couple of days. Finally we got beautiful bluebird weather days for our 2 days off this week and I went to Turoa (the ski area on the opposite side of our mtn) and then Daniel and I went to our resort yesterday (monday) and boarded with friends all day. Had a really good time, the weather was clear and sunny and the snow not too icy! They don't get powder like we do back home, they're lucky to get a meter of snow base and most of it is solid ice now! Oh well. Time to get back to work and poor weather for the rest of the week. I'll post some pics soon from our sunny days off. The 2 here are of a typical snow making morning and a typical "ice" sign that one will see posted all over teh mtn!
Friday, July 17, 2009
1 month into life here (By Ash)
The 2 week school holidays are finally over and thank god for it! The past 2 weeks have been filled with long busy days, and lots and lots of people visiting the mountain. We've finally had a few more snow dumps so we've been able to open more of the mountain up and it's finally starting to look more like a ski resort than just a rocky mountain with just a little bit of snow! Last Tuesday, our first day back after our 2 days off, brang in a mib snow storm. All day it had been rain/sleet/snow and finally around 2pm the big, fat flakes started to fall and so did the temperature. So the snow started to stick on the roads and got icy and we told people to start headind down, especially all 2 wheel drive cars---but did they listen? NO! People go to the snow and leave their brains at home. Within a span of 5 minutes we had 5 car wrecks, a few single car slide but a few were 3, 4 and 5 car pile ups!! It's a steep mountain road and, since Mt. Ruapehu is the only mountain that gets snow in the North Island, people don't know what they're doing. Especially since a lot of them are asians and a lot of Indians from Fiji. So, we started a road evacuation 3pm and got done by 10. Luckily the snow was pretty light and there wasn't wind. We, the lift operations staff, turn into roadies when things like this happen and we turn into chain crews. "Workin on the chain gang"! As fast as we could get the accidents cleared and start getting all 4 wheel drive cars out, we got them going then brought out the chains for everyone else. Our of the 75 2-wheel drive vehicles Daniel and I had to chain up in the 2 parking lots we were dealing with, only 2 had their own chains! And one of those was a big bus/van thing and they had no idea how to put them on!
It may sound like it was hell, but it was actually pretty fun. It was a good feeling to be so useful and helpful for people. The next day, which was a beautiful day, I had people coming up to me and remembering me by name and tahnking me. Even some young kids remembered and now they say hi to me and are excited every time they come through my line. It's funny because I think back to all the times I skied at the same places back in Cali and I never got to know any of the employees....maybe it's just me and my sunny disposition ;-)
Most of you will never believe this, but I get up before 6am every day (escept our days off--then we get up at 7 for breakfast)! Daniel has to be up at 5:30 to be with the de-icing crew first up the mountain, so I get up and have a nice, long hot shower (which you can't get after work since everyone uses the hot water) then I hop online to chat with friends and catch up on the news and stuff before breakfast. I even have time to make coffee and enjoy it! Which I'm doing right now :-D
It's just about 7am and I have to eat breakfast and get going. Hopefully this had helped you all see a little into our lives here. (There's more to it, but I'll get Daniel to write more later) We miss you all back home--just like we miss real Diet Pepsi, BBQ sauce and fried chicken! Write us and send pictures and let us know what's going on back in the good ol' US of A.
(The pictures are of a fun sled ride after work, sunset from our 'back porch' and few sunrise pics from riding up a chairlift at work)
Sunday, July 5, 2009
2nd week in review
One more week down and the season's finally really here. This week marks the start of school holidays and the opening of the rest of the mountain. The first week was good practice with smaller crowds and now the next 2 weeks will be filled with large crowds and busy days. Ashley got to use her loud vocal skills down at the bottom of the bunny slopes doing ticket checking and queue control on the beginner lift. What a long, loud day that was! You'd think after watching the few hundred people in front of you make their way onto the lift correctly that people would learn themselves and have it down by their turn...WRONG! Even after doing the same thing over and over again they still couldn't get it right. Amazing! But it was a fun day, and helping the small kids was a great experience.
Daniel finally got some good de-icing practice clibing towers and getting used to the methods. Now he's ready to get going with those early, cold, windy mornings.
This past weekend brought us some fun 4th of July patritisiom and we bonded with the other 6 Americans here in Staffies. Ashley wore a small US flag tucked into the front of her jacket and got a lot of comments and "Happy 4th of July" wishes from the locals. Even met a few more Americans---one from Novato, CA even! (that's only 15 minutes from Petaluma) We ended the night with a few cases of Budwiser hanging out with all the other staff living at staff quarters. Even all challenged the nationalities to singing the national anthems of all their countries...you'll have to wait to see the video on that one!
We've had the past 2 days off; our normal schedule will give us Sunday and Monday off, so we've been resting and relaxing. Took a hike to a nearby waterfall and read a few books. Enjoyed the winter rain and snow and a few movies. All in all, a good winter weekend :-D
Hope you all had a fun and safe 4th of July weekend. Enjoy that sunshine and don't forget your sunblock!
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