Brrrrrrrr.....

A Kiwiland travel tip: if you're planning on coming to New Zealand during winter, be sure to pack warm clothes, a thick duvet, a hot water bottle, and an electric blanket. It seems that no houses in New Zealand have central heating, even here in the mountains where it's been below freezing every night for over one month. While it's true that part of the fun of travelling is experiencing the things that you might view as unusual from the perspective of your old life at home, this particular one is not so fun- especially when you get out of bed in the middle of the night and have to walk across the tile bathroom floor to go for a pee. The novelty is wearing off...

Snow!

A quick update to the previous post... the snow did indeed start falling last week and while we could still use more, the season is still in its early stages. The snowfall also coincided with Beagle's battery dying an untimely death as we tried to leave the house to get to work on time. That, combined with the snowfall (Queenstown is like Seattle in that when it snows, everything closes and cars are abandoned all over the place) made for an interesting couople of days. Oh, did I forget to mention that once it was repaired, Beagle was still snowed in, with no chains? G-o-o-d times! Anyway it's all sorted now and life goes on.

June is for... snowboarding?

We logged our first day on the hill this past Saturday. It's nothing like riding in WA or Alberta- no trees and not much snow either! It's pretty much all man made for now but Coronet Peak is the only area open within 5 hours of Queenstown so we're feeling lucky to be able to ride at all. It's still quite a lot of fun and we're praying that (real) snow will fall soon. Yes, I had to pirate this photo but at least it was taken at Coronet! We'll get our own posted soon.

Working at Coronet Peak

Since we've bedded down in Queenstown for the winter, we've also both managed to secure jobs at nearby Coronet Peak ski area for the winter. As we both have a fair amount of professional experience as well as univeristy degrees, you might think that we landed great administrative or manegerial jobs, right? Guess again- Christine works in The Brasserie and Andrew now calls the West End Cafe home. The work is not challenging, glamorous, or well-paying, but we came to the realization that a job is a job and even if it sucks we only have to do it for a few months. And so far, it's actually pretty fun. The job's biggest benefit is that it comes with free season passes to Coronet Peak, The Remarkables, and Mt. Hutt so we'll certainly get our fair share of snowboarding in this winter (or is it summer? I can never remember.)