I spent a wonderful couple days in a magical winter wonderland last week out on Mount Ruapehu!!! It was my first time doing snow sports and I have to say that I was amazingly average.
Wednesday Zak drove me, Matthew, Becca, Nessa and Becca’s snowboard down to Ohakune. Now, HENRY’S is quite small… So the girls were in the back with the snowboard and it wasn’t very comfortable at all. We couldn’t really move much at all. The car was pretty packed.at all. Wait, what?
Took us a while to get there. How many hours? 5-ish. I can’t remember where we stopped. I don’t remember… wait… O… Otarahonga… That’s where I got a sausage roll and a potato and gravy. I should have just brought a Subway.
Anyway: Got to our place, Sunbeam Motels which was pretty lucky especially since we didn’t have the address (as usual were hoping to find it by wandering around). I must say that the Ohakune New World is FULL of skiiers and snowboarders.
The place we were staying at was quite nice, it was JUST big enough for 6 people. Darren meet us down there because, unlike us, he only had to drive 2 hours from Wanganui. Darren is ultra nice and chilled. Hahaha PUN! What’s more he has a large van which meant he could take us all up the mountain! But we took the bus for $20 the first day. $10 for 17km… That’s not really fair is it?
OK! So the SNOW!!! It was really white and slippery and participating in snow sports is very expensive especially when you don’t take your ID to say that you’re 18!!! ARGH! I had to pay adult fare. Dammit! $100 for board, boots and pass for the whole day. Me and Matthew were ripped off pretty much. Of all of us, Nessa spent the least amount of money ‘cos she didn’t want to ski or snowboard.
Becca showed us newbies how to snowboard, unfortunately I didn’t really understand and we spent most of the first couple of runs on our knees and bums crawling down the very shallow incline. It was ok getting back up the slope because there was a little conveyor belt that took you back up, just like at Scholastic. And just like the one at Scholastic it stopped, often randomly so you would either lurch forward and stop yourself or lurch forward and fall over. There was one time when it stopped cos this kid fell over and in stopping the belt it caused this group of kids behind me and Matthew (who was my mountain buddy) to fall over in a pile up. Matthew thought this was quite a hilarious thing. I have to admit that I had a bit of trouble riding it and slipped on it a couple of times. Bit retarded.
You know what is awesome? Warm things like hot water bottles, beds and spas. The motel had a spa which was really nice. Unfortunately someone decided to leave their dirty cup which once had pumpkin soup in it…. oh guys! Did anyone tell them that I accidently broke one of the small plates? I don’t think anyone did… woops. Oh well. Matthew will be getting billed… $3.
On the second day me, Matthew and Nessa had FREE FUN! We made a snowman, went sliding down the mountain on plastic sheets and ended the day watching snowboarders/skiiers fall over as they came down the mountain. It was mega tiring going up and down the mountain because I am unfit… and may have eaten too many brownies and ANZAC bikkies. I JUST CAN’T SAY NO! Free fun was the best especially since Matthew and I were VERY sore from the day before. Darren, Becca and Zak went back up the mountain snowboarding again. Apparently it was VERY cold up there.
On Saturday we went on this awesome walk that took us to this waterfall. It was really pretty. Check out all of the awesome pictures on Facebook, baby!