New Zealand - 2008/2009
Sierra Nevadas - 2008
Italy - 2007
France - 2007
Australia - 2004/2005
America - 2004
America - 2002
Italy - 2007
France - 2007
Australia - 2004/2005
America - 2004
America - 2002
Please check back soon, I'm still working on this page :D
New Zealand
21st October
Well I know this is a little late starting this thing, sorry sorry sorry! I’m not really sure where to start, it’s been nearly 2 months since we arrived in New Zealand. We have been working for accommodation when we can to save on money. We started at Sue and Dave’s at Waiheke Island, half hour ferry ride from Auckland. Unfortunately, my lungs decided to work on 10%, I ended up spending $200 to make them better again! We were able to borrow the kayaks that they had, and after me chickening out the first time (it was far to choppy!)....
22nd October
Ok, got a bit distracted yesterday, some random drunk bloke came into the room and started telling us how he’d got a house from the New Zealand government, he’d moved in yesterday with no furniture, but a balcony that he was gonna fall off when he got drunk!
So anyway, back to where I left it yesterday....(it was too choppy the first time we went out in the kayaks) so we went out the day after and kayaked to an island where we got off and had a wander round.
After Sue and Dave’s, we went to Jane’s (who was a friend of a friend of Sue) we had our own flat downstairs in her house, the top floor was where she lived, she used the downstairs for storage, so that’s where we stayed.
Jane was renting it off someone else, but the someone else had left all their stuff there, including two kayaks, so Luke was keen to go kayaking again. The best kayak was only a one man kayak, but it took two of us to carry it, so off we trekked to the beach (not very far) with a one man kayak and a book for me to read whilst Luke paddled about.
Me; deeply engrossed in book,
Luke; paddles back to beach “Did you just see that? I hope you got photos!”
Umm, no….photos of what…?
“I was just kayaking with dolphins!”
Oh crap sorry….I was reading.
He went back out, fortunately the dolphins returned and fortunately I was keeping an eye out this time, so I managed to get some distant shots of the thing Luke hasn’t stopped talking about since.
Once we received our IRD numbers (tax numbers), we left Jane’s, spent a night in Auckland where neither of us got much sleep due to loud music in the bar next door, and then road works starting at 5am outside.
After our sleepless night in the big city (1/3 of New Zealand’s population), we caught the bus north to Whangarei (pronounced Fungeray), and stayed at the Blue Heron where Luke painted a lot of walls (and most of his clothes!) and I moved a slightly deranged resident out of her wine bottle ridden cabin(estimating about 600 empty wine bottles in a tiny cabin - every possible cupboard, shelf, space was crammed with bottles she wanted to categorise, most of which were only 2 years old) to a caravan up the hill (we nicknamed her insane Elaine)
The Blue Heron were preparing for a girls hockey team, so we were kept busy cleaning, de-moulding, painting, assembling bunks, moving furniture, more cleaning in preparation for the under 13 year old girls and their entourage. Pat (of Pat and Steph - a couple that were staying there and I think taking on manager positions) took us to Whangarei Falls which was very pretty. He also gave us a lift to the nearest pub (7km away, and we walked back). I think he felt sorry for us, as we didnt have a car and civilisation was 7km or further away.
Andrew was also at the Blue Heron. He was from Canada and also working for accomodation.
From the Blue Heron, we got a lift to Kerikeri with Pat and Steph.
23rd October
At Kerikeri, we got picked up by by Sandy, and then spent just over a week at Old Bay Joinery. Phil (of Phil and Sandy at OBJ) took us to Ngawha Springs, which are natural hot springs. They smell of bad eggs and are shades of grey, but they were really relaxing once you got used to the smell. Phil also had to go out on jobs occasionally so would drop us at the start of a walk, go on the job, then pick us up at the end when he'd finished.
Sandy dropped us in Paihia at Bay Adventurer hostel, where we were meant to be working for accomodation also, but on arrival were told to pay for the first night, then check with the manager the next day. At 8pm, that night, I got an email saying that they had enough cleaners at the moment.
25th October
So having been rejected from working for accomodation, we weren't too keen to stay that long, however we ended up staying nearly a week. We booked an overnight cruise around the Bay of Islands.
6th November
So I haven’t wrote a lot recently, sorry! And I still haven’t caught up with where we are up to! Will try to get a hang of this writing malarkey…..
The cruise around the Bay of Islands was well worth the $178 we paid for it. Whilst the boat was cruising to the first stop, we started with a shooting competition off the back of the boat (rubber duck and air rifle), the best shot of each sex won a free drink at the bar. Well without bragging, Luke was pretty pants and didn’t hit the duck once, but I got it twice out of 3 shots! Woohoo! Free drink was great…..until I dropped it and spilt most of it on the deck. Bugger.
Next we were given fishing rods and told to catch our supper. Well there’s a rule in New Zealand that if the fish is under a certain size(can‘t remember what size it was), you have to put it back. There was also a free drink for whoever caught the first fish, whatever the size. Nobody managed to catch a fish to keep (all to small) but two of us managed to catch fish…I caught the second one…..damn just missed another free beer.
After we had supper (they had a back up plan of lamb chops in case there were no fish caught), we had the option of going night kayaking. Of course, Luke really wanted to do it, so we both paid an extra $6 and kayaked off into the darkness following the guide. When we were far enough away from the light of the boat, Peter (guide) told us to look down at our paddles as they moved through the water, we did, and they glowed! it’s a strange phenomenon called phosphorescence. Don’t exactly know what it is, but its everywhere in salt water, and you can only see it at night, when there isn’t any other light around. After being amazed, we paddled back to the boat, when Luke decided he wanted his whole body to glow with this phosphorescence, so jumped into the water, swiftly followed by getting straight back out again because it was far too cold!
All of the rooms are on the upper floor of the boat, so we were able to watch the sunrise from our beds the next morning, which was cool. After breakfast, we all donned wetsuits and went snorkelling. The guys from the boat were diving for mussels and kina (sea urchin), Luke decided he wanted to have a go at free diving too, and ended up being mistaken for one of the guys on the boat.
14th November
Still catching up, but been really busy doing things! Hopefully it will make interesting reading when I finally get around to writing it! After the boat cruise, we did a tour up to Cape Reinga, which is the Northern most point on the North Island. If you were to set off in a boat from Cape Reinga, and happened to miss Fiji, the next place you would come to would be Russia! It is were the Tasman Sea and the Pacific Ocean meet. On the tour, we got to go sand boarding, which was really good once we had climbed to the top of the enormous sand dune! I only went once because the climb nearly killed me, but Luke went 3 times (he was almost running up the sand). We also stopped at a beach for lunch, and Luke went body boarding in the freezing sea…rather him than me! I seem to be photographer for the various activities that Luke undertakes….sand boarding, body boarding, rock hopping, tree climbing etc etc
The day after, Luke decides that he wants to jump out of a plane, talks me into it as well (I didn’t need too much persuasion!), so off we head to the Information Centre to book it. 4pm, we are loaded into a car to be taken to the airfield, where we sit and wait. More waiting. 6.30pm, I am strapped to a guy’s front, hanging from an aircraft, with another guy pulling funny faces at me, videoing the whole thing.
From Paihia, we caught the bus back down to Auckland, where we stayed for a week, attempting to look for a car to buy. We were fooling ourselves really, as although we had been to the backpackers car market and texted a couple of people about their cars for sale, we really didn’t know what we were meant to be looking for or anything.
17th November
We now have a car! Yey! Will tell you about that later though, still haven’t quite caught up. We hung around in Auckland for about a week, planning where we were going next. We were going to head south and probably go to the Coromandel Peninsula, but then Luke got an email from his Grandad about their trip to the South Island. We tried to get a relocation hire car to Christchurch, but all the relocations were going the other way back up to Auckland. So plan B was to bus it down, which turned out to be more expensive than flying, so we flew.
We were in Christchurch just over a week before Luke’s Dad, Grandad and Grandad’s partner arrived, so we worked for accommodation on the outskirts of the city at Carolyn and Paul’s place. They had a lodger, Felicity, whose cat Luke tormented quite a lot. For a weeks accommodation, we had to do 7 hours work, which is definitely the least we have done so far. They were trying to get their garden sorted out, and Paul had cut down a tree, which it was our job to break it down into leaves (for garden mulch), twigs (for kindling) and logs (for firewood). On our time off, we mainly just walked around Christchurch, spent time in the botanical gardens, or watching DVDs on Luke’s laptop. We tried to look for a car again, but without any success.
We met Luke’s family at Christchurch airport and then drove down to Timaru in a hire car. His Grandad and partner were staying with a policeman in Pleasant Point (near Timaru) and it was him who we bought our car off.
I'm sat here fixing my website and I've been told I need to tell you all about "Loo Brush" (Lubouce...? no idea how to spell that!!!). He was in our hostel in Timaru for a saturday night, was from Slovakia, couldn't speak very much English and came out with a group of us to the pub. He kept on about the navigator would take us there and British Indian women. He would go to the bar and point at the Guiness pump. He looked up some words in his little dictionary and informed me "You likeness my cousin" . Hmmm...ok, thanks.
13th December
Ok, haven’t wrote a while…you might be starting to see a pattern here…
After we met up with Luke’s Dad and Grandad, we spent the week in and around Timaru doing stuff concerning Jodie and Jon’s ashes, which were scattered at Lake Tekapo. We visited the site and collected pine cones to collect seeds for trees. Terry bought Luke a fishing rod, so we spent a couple of days fishing, catching fish, what we found out later were red cod (apparently not a great fish, but we thought it tasted ok, especially when it was cooked fresh on the beach)
We took a visit to Peel Forest, and walked to Emily Falls and back (1.5 hour return) , it was a really nice walk, crossing streams (which I gave up trying to keep my feet dry the second time I slipped off a rock, so ended up just wading through them!). Of course Luke was rock-hopping all over the place.
We also gave Geoff (the policeman) a hand herding his sheep down the road to get them sheared. Terry and Stu also helped out placing elastic bands around the lambs tails and the male lambs testicles.
After Luke’s family left Timaru, we spent another few days there, deciding where to go next and what to do. That’s when we met the infamous Loo Brush (who was only in the hostel for one night, but made such an impression on us, 2 Dutch girls; Chantel and Nike, and an English guy called Stu (another one). The 2 Dutch girls were a tad crazy, they wanted to go swimming in the South Pacific Ocean at midnight! They settled to go the next morning, taking Luke with them. I waited on the beach laughing at them and taking photos.
30th December
Again apologies for the gap in writing this thing…. You’d think I’d be getting into the habit by now! When I last wrote, I was telling you about Timaru. From there we gave the Dutch girls a lift to Oamaru where we stayed for 3 nights and saw yellow eyed penguins (rare), explored vanished worlds (whale fossils buried in the rock) and were amazed at the stone formations of Elephant Rocks and the Moeraki Boulders.
We had been looking online for another Help Exchange placement and one came up in Akaroa at an Adventure Centre (which meant back tracking up to Christchurch and onto the Peninsula), it did mean we could go back via Peel Forest which we had both enjoyed. We did another walk, Rata Falls, which again was crossing streams and the like. More wet feet for me. We stopped overnight at a campsite in Methven ,we decided to put the seats down, be brave and sleep in the car although we didn’t have a mattress only our sleeping bags, so it was an uncomfortable night sleeping on the hard metal. The campsite had a trampoline, which Luke proceeded to show off doing numerous back flips and stuff. I stuck with just jumping up and down. I still ended up falling over!
We drove on to Akaroa the next day to meet Darin (who owned the Adventure Centre), except he wasn’t there but Craig (another helper) was there to meet us and show us around. Darin was trying to set up a ‘Relaxpackers’ and Surf Lodge at his house, which was up the hill above Akaroa, overlooking a couple of the bays. The work was really easy, we were either at the hostel preparing for guests, weeding, chopping wood etc, or down in Akaroa at the Adventure Centre helping Darin renting out kayaks, surfboards, wetsuits etc.
We both ended up working at Akaroa Bakery Café each doing 3½ days a week with Darin, and 2-3 days at the Bakery.
The hostel was on the border of a nature reserve, which had quite a few walks, and was one hours walk downhill to Akaroa town, which we did only once, certainly didn’t attempt to walk it the other way!
After leaving Akaroa, we headed to Queenstown (yet more backtracking, down the South Island again) which is where we are at the moment. We have got cleaning jobs in a backpackers in exchange for accommodation. We are hoping to get paid work here as well, but are still looking. There is a good crowd in the hostel, a lot of them being long-termers working in Queenstown.
As you might know, Queenstown is the adventure capital of New Zealand. We went on a jet boat a few days ago which was cool, and yesterday we did a bungy jump and sky swing. The sky swing was cool, (like a massive rope swing) but the running off the ledge for the bungy was so freaking scary! I didn’t even manage a scream, just a funny, strained “Fuuuuuuuuuggggggmmmmmhhhh” (will post the video on here when I’ve figured out how to!) Wow, I’ve just realised I’m up to date now! I normally get distracted by something when I write my blog and never quite catch up. This is a first…… (and probably a rare thing!) Anyway, I’ll stop babbling, let you lovely people get on with your day, and I’ll speak to you again soon….gotta go figure out html coding for videos now……
16th January 2009
Happy New Year everyone. We are still in Queenstown, cleaning in the Flaming Kiwi, which was kinda eventful over New Year (well a couple of days after) as guys in our dorm threw up, one against the door, the other one didn’t make it so far, he lost control of his bodily functions in his bed (the top bunk). He then proceeded to take his sheets off to clean them, but he failed to notice the difference between the washing machine and the dryer. The cleaners weren’t impressed and the dryer is now broken.
Anyway on another note, I’ve been working at an open air cinema under the stars. Twilight Cinema is only in Queenstown for 2 weeks, and it has 2 nights left. Have been practising my tent erecting skills as the box office is a bright yellow tent. After informing the boss lady she was trying to attach the canvas sides inside out, I asked about a hammer or mallet to hit the tent pegs in, she went away, came back with a plastic torch…hmmm….that’s gonna break I think.
I have just got another job working in an art gallery at weekends, I start on Sunday. Hopefully should be good.
Apologies for not getting the video online yet. I tried, but it’s in a different format to what I can edit on the laptop, so can’t condense it, therefore would take ages to download…. Am still trying to figure it out.
18th January
As a backpacker, I have few clothes, and have them until they wear out. I decided it was time for some new underwear, bought a cheap 5 pack of pants, thought I had got the right size (more or less), turns out I bought the biggest pants ever. They would quite easily fit 3 people in them. I have now realised I have turned into my Nan (she wore size 20+ pants even though she was only a size 12ish?, as they were comfy) Oh dear me, I’m only 27! Next I’ll be pinning my knickers to my bra! RIP Nan
23rd April
I am a Roast Dinner. And this is my diary.
Luke and Ross went to Cromwell to do some fruit picking. They didn’t have a lot of money and were living on 2 minute noodles. Amy decided she would go to visit them and cook a meal…they could choose whatever meal they wanted. That is how I came about, the Roast Dinner.
Luke and Ross didn’t have an oven in the cabin block they were in but had been told of an oven, 10 minutes walk away.
Amy wasn’t sure what cooking equipment the lads had, so bought some disposable foil trays.
1.20pm…The three of them start to prepare things, Luke was chopping garlic, onions and carrots, Ross was peeling and chopping potatoes and also chopping broccoli. Amy was overseeing the mission and every job she started got taken over by someone wanting to help.
1.35pm…The beef goes into a preheated oven, covered with garlic and pepper.
1.45pm…Potatoes are put onto boil for a few minutes before placed in a second foil container to roast in the oven.
2.10pm…Amy checks the beef and potatoes to find that she can quite easily touch the foil trays without burning herself. The beef is still red, the potatoes white.
2.15pm…Luke and Ross are sent to find another oven.
2.35pm…Luke and Ross return with news of another oven, the other side of the campsite.
2.45pm…After a hunt for a way of carrying the 2 foil trays (that bend every which way when anyone attempted to pick them up), a roasting pan was found to transport the flimsy foil.
3.05pm…The newly discovered oven is turned onto preheat.
3.10pm…Amy gives up on preheating the oven and whacks the beef and potatoes in anyway. She figured it was hotter than the oven they had previously been in.
From the information on the beef label, Amy had reckoned it would take just over an hour to cook the beef. And about an hour for the roast potatoes. She was guessing here….
With the lack of heat from the previous cooking device, she had no idea how long they had been cooked for, so gave up on the timings and figured the roast potatoes would just be extra crispy if the beef needed longer. All good.
Amy had all the ingredients for Yorkshire pudding batter (there is a lot of baking done in the Flaming Kiwi hostel in Queenstown), but wasn’t sure of quantities, so she looked up a recipe online. Having completely forgot to bring the recipe she’d copied down, she had to resort to her mum’s method….a dollop of this, a splash of that, and make it up as she went along.
Luke at this point, decides to show off his one-handed egg cracking skills, and in doing so, drops a piece of eggshell into the batter, never to be seen again.
4.15pm…After checking and turning the beef and potatoes several times, Amy decides they are probably not far off being doing, maybe another 20 minutes of so.
4.16pm…The 3rd foil tray is put into the oven, preheating the oil for the Yorkshire pud.
They have previously decided they will boil the carrots, broccoli and cabbage in one big saucepan (pans are limited…really huge or stupidly small, and it also saves on washing up)
They have also decided that they will boil the veg, and make gravy in the lads kitchen, so as not to annoy the residents of the oven’s cabin block any more than they need to.
4.20pm…Ross gets sent to start on the vegetables.
4.25pm…Batter is poured into the 3rd tray and put into oven, when Luke announces he needs to watch it rise, so plonks himself on the floor, cross-legged in front of the oven. Amy looks on in bewilderment.
4.45pm…The Yorkshire pudding has risen around the sides, but not a lot in the middle. Amy decides they need to take it out before the crispy sides turn carcinogenic.
A decision is made that everything is pretty much done, so the pair of them trek to where Ross is boiling the vegetables. Or should I say waiting for the water in the vegetable pan to boil. The meat needs to rest anyway, no stress.
4.50pm…Water starts boiling in vegetable pan. Amy has poured the meat juices and the onions that the beef was rested on, into a saucepan and is adding gravy granules. The Yorkshire pudding and roast potatoes, meanwhile, are being kept warm in a miniature grill thing.
4.55pm…The Yorkshire pudding is burning, Ross notices, takes it out, tastes it. It’s still good.
5.05pm…After finding 3 plates, Amy dishes the food up, Ross instructing her to put it all out, it’ll get eaten.
5.10pm…The vegetables are added to the already mountainous plates. Finally gravy is added to Amy’s and Ross’s plates. Not Luke’s. Luke likes gravy, but not on food. Strange boy.
5.15pm…After nearly 4 hours cooking, they sit down to eat. Each ones complains they are full at least twice before the meal is completely finished.
15th June
Ok, Ok, Ok…I know I should write this more often…same old story again, I’m sorry. But there hasn’t been much to report really.
First, I'll apologise again for not having put the videos of me throwing myself of ledges and out of planes etc. I need to use Luke's knowledge of website stuff to link / attach / upload (whatever the terminology is!) them to this site, and it's trying to remember to bug him when we are both near the laptop. Sorry again
We spent 5 ½ months in Queenstown, I had 2 jobs, 1 in the art gallery and another in a clothes shop, both 2 days a week (that is when the gallery wasn’t messing me around with what hours I was working), Luke worked for a month setting up and taking down marquees for the NZ Golf Open, and then spent another month in Cromwell grape picking. Queenstown isn’t a place to try and save money though and our funds got well and truly drained, it didn’t help that we both got into playing pub poker(free to enter, could win a bar tab) which was on every night ‘cept Fridays and Saturdays and by buying drinks gave you more poker chips, oh dear. I won twice, once the day before my birthday at Ministry of Sports…which was handy as I then only spent $20(bout 8 quid) on my birthday. Poker was on at Rattlesnake (pub with highest bar tab prize) on my birthday, so we had to play. I got a Royal Flush (to those that don’t know, royal flush is the best hand you can possible get in poker) and had a seriously big stack of chips, but my ‘audience’ was waiting to spend my bar tabs (had another bar tab at Surreal cos I signed up, and they give members $50 tab on their birthday) so ended up coming 3rd.
When we were still cleaning at the Flaming Kiwi, we were able to go an a trip to Milford Sound free of charge. The day we went, it had been raining on the sound but we were lucky that it stopped before we got there, so we got lots of waterfalls, but didn’t get soaked outside on the boat. It was a long day(5hours on a coach, each way) but it was good to escape Queenstown for a bit(even if it was only one day). We also had a few day trips out to Glenorchy, at the head of Lake Wakatipu, Arrowtown and Wanaka, where Puzzling World is…and where I bought a new Rubik’s Cube (yes I can hear you now Fisha….I should’ve took my one from home!).
Way back in February, we set ourselves a date that if we hadn’t got jobs by then, we were going to leave Queenstown. The date came and we were both waiting to hear back from job offers, so fitting in between my working Saturdays at the gallery, we went on a road trip around the bottom of the South Island. By this time we had a tent, so decided to camp as much as we could to save on money. It is summer in February in the Southern Hemisphere. Out of the 5 nights we were away, we camped for 3 nights on DOC (Department of Conservation) Campsites which have small camp fees of $6 per tent per night. Of the 3 nights we camped, it rained for 2 of them.
We had planned to spend a night in Dunedin, we got there with several hostels addresses, but hadn’t booked. We figured we would just turn up and we would be able to get 2 dorm beds somewhere, it wasn’t like it was busy. After I had a nightmare trying to park our huge tank of a car (compared to the fiesta I’m used to driving!) outside a (apparently very fully booked) hostel, on a very narrow back street (more like an alleyway) and downhill (made reverse parking a tad difficult, as even though I was in reverse, the car was still rolling forward unless I revved the hell out of it!), I gave up, parked on a flat, normal size road and told Luke he had to go find a hostel first, then I’d attempt to park the car. Luke tried 2 more hostels, only to be told that we would be hard pushed to find accommodation in Dunedin unless we had booked in advance. That was it, the last straw, I’d had enough. We spent roughly about 2 hours in Dunedin, and that included going to the supermarket to get more food for that nights camping.
Luke got a job picking grapes in Cromwell (45 mins from Queenstown). In the time he was gone, the hostel changed completely and all the long termers moved out, to be replaced by a new set of residents for the upcoming ski season. He came back just before my birthday, which was cool, cos I was gonna be celebrating my birthday with a whole load of randomers. There has been a bit of a caking phase in the Flaming Kiwi, pretty much anyone who has had a birthday has had a cake (or cookies if your name is Verity). The girls baked me a 28 cake, which made me feel really old, so a few modifications were made, and I think the result is much better! (look at the pics to see)
Sierra Nevadas - Skiing
....survived with no broken limbs....amazing!
those that know me, know that my sense of balance is about as good as an elephant on a tightrope! So therefore the sub heading is probably making more sense now!The Place: Sierra Nevadas
The People: Stu, Luke, Jason, George, Al, Stu's dad and Luke's Grandad Terry.
The Dates: 5th to 12th February 2008
Stu had been on for ages bout organising a trip to near where his dad lives in Spain. So after not much organising, but what seemed to be a lot of effort, we set off. Stu and Jason paid for a full week skiing, but the rest of us, due to lack of money / lack of time off work / never skied before / all of the above only got a 3 day pass. Our first lessons were on a tiny bit of snow at the bottom of the hill, as the lifts to the beginners area had decided to break down for a few hours.
Luke, being flukey(think that's why his name is Luke!!) picked it up straight away, and George and Al didn't seem to be doing too bad either....me on the other hand...hmmm....well thats a different story! My knees aint the greatest anyway, and because we were on the smallest patch of snow ever, we had to keep side-stepping back up the hill, my knees just wanted to fall off there and then!
We finally got onto the proper beginners slopes, and the others were straight onto the green (very easy) ski runs. I on the other hand was still trying to figure out how to snowplough and stop. Jason had so much patience, standing in front of me so my skis didn't run away with me. I still hadn't fully figured it out when Luke's Grandad showed up and declared we should all have a break, so Jason and Stu went off to do some proper skiing whilst us newbies had a much needed sit down in the cafe.Later on, I found out that Luke's Grandad was a "throw you in at the deep end" kind of teacher, well it certainly seemed like that when he took me down a green run without me knowing how to stop or really turn that well, but I guess it worked, as by the end of Day 1, I had figured out how to turn, albeit having to find the shallowest of gradients on the green runs....any steeper than the shallowest and I lost control and ate snow.!
Skiing Day 2, I was getting more confident with the turning, although was still falling over, could manage (slightly) steeper inclines. My two most spectacular falls happened today though....one, I ended up face down, skis still attached, legs in snowplough position (for those that don't ski, imagine the position if you were desperate for the loo, knees together, bum sticking out), the more I tried to get in a better position, the more my legs spread, so much so that Terry had to unclip both of my skis, and even then it was difficult getting up! Number 2 (although I personally think this was my best tumble of the trip!)....I fell over, rolled at least once, both my skis popped off...ok no problem..it's easy to get up...got up....went to put skis back on...realised I have snapped one of my ski poles! Great! Terry was really kind and gave me his, whilst he carried my broken pole and still ok other pole... I was petrified I was gonna break his ski poles too (his weren't rented, as mine were).
My last run down the green slope that day, I only fell over once, but apparently it wasn't a proper fall, it was more of a relax....hmmmm...ok! TBH, it was a stupid loss of control...it was on a really shallow slope, turning, which I thought I had ok, I guess I wasn't concentrating and I ended up on my arse!
Anyway, thats enough for now, I'm getting bored and I think I need to go and say hello to my housemates..... more skiing fun to follow ( will hopefully write it tomorrow (sunday) if not, then monday.
Bye for now
Skiing Part II
Ok, so I said i'd finish writing this on sunday and it's now tuesday, sorry sorry sorry, been busy ok.
Day 3 was meant to be everyone's (except Stu's and Jason's) last ski day, but it turned out it wasn't a skiing day at all, as we got up to the start of the slopes to find the lifts were broken down again, so after hanging around on the off chance they would open (ski staff seemed to think they would), we decided to give up and Terry took us all on a walk near where he lives. I wish I knew where it was, it was beautiful scenery.
There was a cool cave thing, really strange how nature forms things sometimes
Day 4 was a wipe out skiing wise too, so everyone decided they wanted to see the sea! We went to "Mr Grumpy's", a favourite bar of Terry's, although it would've been so much better if it was actually called that! All the tapas there was fish (well it had to be, being right on the beach!), much to Al's dismay, so he was relieved when we left and went for a wander on the beach, even going s far as taking off his shoes and socks and going for a paddle in the water.Later on, we all went for a meal at the restaurant in Terry's village. Really good food!
Day 5 we got to go skiing again, and I was a bit nervous about the 2 day gap, but I managed the green slopes better than I expected. I think I even managed a few runs down without falling flat on my face! I musta skiied so hard (hard for a beginner!) as my legs and whole body ached sooo much after today!
Luke and myself managd to get an extra day's skiing, so day 6 was on the slopes again, or in my case, most of it was sat watching, as I took a fall on my second run and my knee didnt like it too much. did have a couple of extra runs down, but didnt want to make it any worse, so opted out in the afternoon and took my skis/boots back early so I could have a walk around (not hobble like some weird cripple) the non-skiers area.
That evening , Roddy and Sally (Stu's brother and his wife) invited us back to Terry's for a BBQ (Terry had gone home the day before), so we went back to the hostel, changed out of ski clothes, bought some random meat from the supermarket across the road and headed off down there. As I had not skied in the afternoon, I had managed to consume 2 big beers by the time the others joined me, followed by 2 more after they joined me, so by the time we were back at the hostel, I was feeling quite tipsy, not helped by the fact Luke bought beer whilst buying random meat, and proceeded to keep offering them round in the van on the way to the BBQ. Never the less, I wasn't the one who got horrendously drunk and ended up snogging a window on the way back to the hostel! I won't mention any names....you know who you are! ;o) XD