The First Rule of Ski Club

On the bus journey from Fox Glacier to Queenstown we saw little glimpses of scenery, which all looked like they would be fantastic if the cloud base was higher than 200 metres. We passed through huge flat-bottomed glacial valleys, much bigger than the glacial valleys in Scotland. And there were trees everywhere, unlike Scotland, but so much rain. At the time I thought that there must be more rain than Scotland and, later I did a wee bit of research online that confirmed this is the case. The average rainfall on the West coast of New Zealand is more than double the average at the heaviest points in Scotland.

Queenstown looked a bit like Aviemore at first sight. It was much smaller than I had expected, but it was clearly another artificial town mostly constructed just for tourism. People had told us, though, that Queenstown was a touristy place and some people, mostly kiwis, had implied that we shouldn't really bother with it at all. I thought it looked OK, but it was the best scenery we had seen yet, mostly I suspect, because the cloud was a little thinner here and we could actually see a bit of scenery for the first time. After checking in we found a curry place that wasn't too dear by Queenstown standards which, we had been warned and we were finding, are expensive. It was nothing special but at least it was much hotter and less greasy than you can usually find in India. Oh for a curry from Glasgow – curry capitol of the world!

New Zealand Curry

Real India curry. Greasy as anything.

We had intended to take a day trip from Queenstown to Milford Sound, which was reputedly one of the wonders of the world, according to Rudyard Kipling, however considering the lack of success at the glaciers we were reluctant to fork out the large amount of money required for the tour. Instead we discovered that the weather was forecast to be good in Queenstown the next day and booked skiing instead. Joanne had never skied before and was keen to do so; I realised that it was twenty-one years since I had last skied and I was keen to see if I still could. The forecast for Milford Sound was poor the whole time we were scheduled to be in Queenstown so we were thinking of cutting our stay there short and heading somewhere else.

What we had booked as a twin room wasn't in the main part of the hostel like we had expected, but one of two rooms in a little self-contained cottage, which we were sharing with a couple of young kiwis. It would make an excellent destination with friends, but the couple seemed nice and we got on well with them. They were planning to go snowboarding for the first time the next day, so we all went to bed reasonably early.

We were picked up early by the bus going to the Cardrona ski resort, which was further from Queenstown than I expected since the town was surrounded by snow-covered mountains. It turns out that the package we had booked, almost at random, was not really in Queenstown but 90 minutes away, near Wanaka. There was hardly a cloud in the sky and on the way we were told that there had been twenty centimetres of snow during the night. It would going to be amazing conditions they said, the best weather they'd had all week.

Joanne was signed up for the beginners group and two lessons, whereas I had signed up for the Achievement package, which meant one lesson in the morning then free time in the afternoon. There were loads of different levels for me to choose from and I wasn't sure where to go, but they told me to speak to an instructor if I wasn't sure what level to go in at. There were various signs for me to choose which to stand next to, and I reckoned level one, “stoppers”, and level two, “beginner turners”, were beneath me, so I thought level three, “wedge turners” would be fine. I explained to the instructor at level three that I was probably a level five last time I skied over two decades ago, but I wasn't sure where I should go. She suggested I try to see what I could remember then choose: if you can stop and turn come here, if you can't turn go to level two, and if you can't stop go to level one.

Level three it was! The group was a mix of people who had recently come from level two and people like me, who hadn't skied for a while. At twenty-one years my length was the greatest. One of the women in my group said “So you were three last time you skied”, which I liked. Later Joanne told me that this only meant I am now old enough for middle-aged women to make passes at me, but I'm sure she really thought I was twenty-four. It was great fun, and I was in the correct group, but I was definitely near, though not quite at, the bottom of the group.

The slopes

One of the guys in my group was an American and on the way up the chair lift together we got chatting. When I said I was from Scotland his first response was “Scotland's in a lot of trouble now isn't it?” referring to the release of al-Megrahi. My news consumption has been quite limited while travelling and the only US sentiment on the issue I had picked up was on internet forums. I responded that I didn't really think anyone apart from Americans cared, and he stopped talking to me! I re-engaged him by asking him whether it was really that big a story in the US and he told me that it was the story; it was the full hour on CNN. He told me that they were genuinely discussing freedom whisky and freedom tape just like the freedom fries debacle in the build up to the Iraq War. How childish! Anyway, he told me, most people had decided to boycott instead of just changing the name, so I just told him that this would be great since it might cause the prices at home to fall.

The beginner slopes - Joanne may be in this shot

I had a lot of fun, but it wasn't quite working for me, and I was always one of the group that the instructor gave advice to when we stopped. None of the advice seemed to be helping though, until finally she asked me “Do you know the difference between defecation and fornication?”. Apparently I had been crouching instead of sticking my pelvis forwards, but this was only because I was trying to follow other advice she had given me. After this last bit, it all came together and, for the last two runs I think I went from being one of the worst in the group to being one of the best.

View at the bottom of the chairlift

At lunch time I met up with Joanne, after fighting through the reporters who were there for the final of the Winter Games. Apparently loads of top snowboarders and skiers had been at this resort for the last month or so, and many of the competitions were finishing that day. I met Joanne just after they announced the female freestyle halfpipe champion (or something). Joanne was still unsure whether she was enjoying it. I fell over once she told me, ashamed, it seemed. I told that falling over once on your first ski lesson is nothing. After lunch we both went to the nursery slope where I went on one little run with Joanne, but I didn't think I would help very much so I decided to go off one my own then remembered that I had forgotten to take a picture of her, so went back but couldn't see her.

View from the top of the chairlift

I spent all afternoon practising what I had learned in the morning and introducing some stuff I used to know that I probably wasn't “supposed” to be doing yet. The weather was amazing all day and every trip up on the ski lift I met new single-serving friends. Loads of the people there were with children, some as young as three. Apparently that is the correct age to start skiing, although one guy told me he'd left it too late to start his daughter at three: you should start them skiing before they can walk he said, at least half-serious, I think. I kept popping in at the beginners' slope to take photos but I could never see Joanne.

The Remarkables

At the end of the day, Joanne said that she'd really enjoyed it too, as had our skiboarding neighbours. Immediately I started thinking about how we could go skiing cheaply in the future. It had been quite dear but, in fact, compared to skydiving or bungy-jumping it was very good value: they are both over in no time and cost about the same or more than a whole day skiing.

Queenstown

written by  The Happy Couple on August 29, 2009 from Queenstown, New Zealand
from the travel blog: Michael's Round-the-World honeymoon
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