There’s no business like Snow business!
4th August 2006
From the moment we arrived in Queenstown our budget took a bit of a battering! We had overheard two people speaking about a Queenstown restaurant when in Franz Joseph with the key words being “good food” and “large portions”…we were clearly bought in from the word go!
We found said restaurant and the description was clearly correct but nevertheless we managed to clear our plates as both us have been taught (we clearly blame our mothers for our relentless greed!) and almost had to be rolled out of the place at the end of the evening….vowing never to eat as much ever again (yeah right!).
Well as Chris has already explained the first activity we embarked upon in Queenstown was white water rafting. However, Chris had been angling to go on a three day skiing package from the moment we arrived only for me (clearly the level headed one out of the two of us) to reason that we could learn to ski in Europe and we would almost certainly go on a weeks holiday in the future and it would clearly be a disaster if one of us broke a leg whilst only three months into our trip (a good argument has lots of salient points)!
Well returning from the rafting I spotted a middle aged woman looking extremely glam in co-ordinated ski attire getting her snow board out the back of her 4×4 and suddenly had visions of myself looking equally a glam cutting through the snow on a pink snowboard (co-ordinated with a black and neon pink outfit) …this vision led to rush of blood to my head and a declaration of “let’s go and learn to board”. With no objection to Chris we headed directly to the booking office without stopping for breath. So that how we came about on the slopes of Coronet peak (however my outfit was nowhere near as glam!)
Queenstown has two ski fields flanking its outskirts …Coronet Peak and the aptly named ‘Remarkables’. We headed for the former after being told it was better for boarding.
Our package included three days of ski passes and four lessons which we took during the first two days. Our progression was faster than we expected as we did not expect to be able to come down the beginners run without falling over. That is not to say we did not fall over ….much of the first day was spent either on my bum or face down in the snow…and my tailbone (Cocyx for you physiologists out there) ,like our budget, took a right old battering!
Now those of you who know how competitive I can be will no that I say this through gritted teeth but Chris picked boarding quicker than me …which I attribute to his ice hockey days (there has to be a reason you see!). My only saving grace was the number of five year olds who were whizzing past him on their skis!
I had some difficulty learning to stop on my heel side edge which was corrected in our last lesson by a brilliant instructor who seemed to make everything fall in place. At the end of the lessons we were both turning on either edge and managing to steer ourselves in between those further down the slope without bailing out.
In our last lesson (on the end of the second day) we progressed on to a slightly steeper slope and onto a chair lift which took a little mastering with a board attached to one foot.
Although we booked a three day pass, I said my fairwells to the slope at lunchtime on day three because my body could not physically take much more and my legs were beginning to spasm. Chris spent another hour or so on the slopes before also turning in his board…but in the knowledge that we will both back on a board once this trip is over. Now I always had an inkling we would enjoy snow-boarding but I dont think either of us was prepared for how much!
Tags: New Zealand, Queenstown
Chris and Charl
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