The winter season is still here and despite a few forays into the teen degrees, it will remain for another couple of months.
We have had a mixed last month, lots of different emotions flying around, and feeling slightly hemmed in by the small community, cold weather, and work-sleep-work routine that we have found ourselves slipping into.
However, we are now much closer to the end of September which is our agreed finish-time in Ohakune and then we can get on our way again in Peggy and start to do what we did in our first 6 weeks here - travel round, do fun things and have a good time.
We have been having a good time in Ohakune, dispite my occasional misgivings:
I am now an accomplished skier. Well, perhaps you can omit the word accomplished. Maybe even skier. That leaves: I am now an. That's about right.
Anyway, we have had about 10 days (or mostly half-days) skiing up the mountain. We are tending to get 3-4 consecutive days skiing every 2 weeks when Simon comes to Canoe Safaris and takes over the day-to-day running of the business so that we can get out and enjoy ourselves. I had a private 3-hour lesson, and came out of it with a tenfold improvement. It really was unbelievable how much I improved over those 3 hours, so for any of you who have not skied before, definitely get a private lesson as soon as possible, as you will benefit far more than you can imagine.
Since my lesson (nay, epiphany), me and Meg have been able to go up all the chairlifts and been exploring all the blue runs that are available to us. (The blue runs are the areas for intermediates). On my last day skiing a few days ago, we were there for 3 and a half hours, and I fell over just once. Just once. Meg fell over TWICE. This marks an important landmark in our skiing relationship - the day I finally fell over less times than my wife. And I actually came off the mountain having definitely enjoyed skiing. On previous days I had thought, 'well, skiing, is...OK, but I don't see what's quite so addictive about it..'. After my last day I had a really good time, and felt safe and like I knew what I was doing. I am now a skier (accomplished).
Lunch on the mountain is always good. We make our sandwiches beforehand, and I have rediscovered the beautiful simplicity of jam sandwiches. Wow. They are fantastic.Having a jam sandwich with some herbal tea at the top of a slope surveying the landscape for 100's of kilometres is awesome.
Work has been ok, but it has been very up and down. Meg has stopped working at Mountain Rocks as it was a bit too cliquey, with the promise (unfilled so far) of more hours at Kings. At Kings Meg has been mainly working on reception, which I never thought I would see her doing - an administrative job surrounded by paperwork and answering phonecalls. She really enjoys it, and is very good at it - very customer-facing which she excels at. I have continued to do my Thursday night shift at Mountain Rocks which I enjoy as I get to do the quiz and speak to all the locals. I do 3-4 shifts a week at the bar at Kings, which has been ok, but I have had a few disagreements with the bar manager, which has led to a few uncomfortable moments/shifts. It has certainly made me realise that I am most certainly just an 'employee' and nothing more. So now I just go to do my job and come home. I have learnt not to ask any questions, or suggest anything, as it will most certainly be 'wrong'.
The work at Canoe Safaris has also turned into a bigger task than was originally agreed. After being told that most of the work would be at the weekends, we are now ending up having to have one of us on the premises every day for 3-4 hours in the morning up until about 11am, and then again from 2pm onwards for check-ins etc.
We are currently 'discussing' this situation with Simon, so will await and see whether we get any sort of compensation. We are getting free accommodation, one free ski season pass and free ski gear rental for the season but this still doesn't make up for all the hours that we are putting in. We'll wait and see.
More than anything, we have been getting homesick. We did sort of expect this at this stage (about 3-4 months into our trip), so hopefully it will pass soon. I am sure we will be fine once we are on our way again, but having all this time here has given us the opportunity to think about everyone back home.
Both sets of parents are currently planning on coming to see us, which has been cheering us up.
Carol (Meg's mum) has booked her flight to come and see us for 3 weeks in November/December, which will be brill. It has made us get the map out and plan our whistle-stop tour with Carol, and reminds us why we're here and how much we still have to do. My folks are planning to come over in early 2010, and will probably hire a car to drive themselves around in, and we will arrange to meet up with them in different places around the country. We are really excited about getting to the south island and seeing all the 'biggies' (Milford/Doubtful sound, Queenstown, glaciers, Arthurs Pass, Christchurch, Kaikoura, Nelson, Abel Tasman, etc).
I have found some football to play!! Every wednesday there is some 5-a-side football played at the local college. I have joined a team called 'Seagulls', and so far we have won 2, drawn 1 (but admittedly only had 4 players). Most people that go seem to be foreigners (English, Irish, South American) presumably desperate to get their 'fix' of football in a rugby-dominated country. Rugby does seem to be everywhere. Whenever I work at the bar, there is always either rugby union, rugby league, or Aussie Rules football on, and there seems to be so many different leagues/cups/tournaments. It did seem very confusing until I reminded myself of all the football that is played in England and Europe and it must seem equally confusing to someone unfamilar to the Premier League/Championship/FA Cup/League Cup/European cup etc.
Anway, I am really enjoying playing football for the first time in 4 months, and have already nutmegged lots of people.
It has been good to be able to make use of the oven here, and there is also a blender. We have been making pies, toasted muesli, and lots of soups. It has been lovely. Going back to our 2 hobs in Peggy will be a bit strange, but we won't mind. But we may miss home-made muesli. The local shop sells huge bags of veg for the equivalent of £5, so we keep getting these and making lovely soups from them.
Meg has been very productive and got some photography work. She met a fellow photographer a few weeks ago, who must have visited all the local fashion/clothing catalogues. However, he has since had to return home (to Argentina) and passed on some work that he has been offered to Meg! The company is called The Wool Company and has been in existence for about 20 years. It is family-owned and is now run by the original owner's daughter, Margot. Meg has had a few meetings with her, and it looks like it will be a 3 day shoot in early September, possibly in Napier. Meg is looking forward to getting her camera out, and it's nice to be creatively inspired again.
In our spare time together, other than skiing, we have done most of the local walks. A lot of the walks are through native bush, which is really nice (and keeps us dry when it rains!). It is surprising how complecent we have got about walking through forests here – all the foliage is still lush green and it feels really deep and rich with life/activity – we know that most walks through woodland in the UK in the winter season would be through bare trees.
We have also done a nice walk by some local lakes, which are considered sacred by the Maori – people are even requested not to eat near the lake as it is considered offensive.
Another nice walk is along the Old Coach Road. Before the railway line was in existence, people travelled from Auckland to Wellington along this route. It is more open than the forest walks which makes a nice change and you can see all the lovely surrouding hills and scenery. It also leads to a fantastic viaduct, which is the sight of the world's first commercial bungee jumping operation. It has since closed down (due to safety standards!), but is quite a feat of engineering as it spanned quite inhospitable/inaccessible terrain.
We have also been allowed to walk the 2 dogs that belong to the owners of Kings. They are 2 border collies called Bella and Harry. They are the kind of dog that we will get when we are older, and are lots of fun.
So, in summary, we are reminding ourselves of how lucky we are to be here, and that this small stage in our NZ adventure will be coming to a close soon. When that happens we can continue our exciting exploration of the countryside and leave work behind us again for a couple more months. We can't wait.
