More Skiing (finally)

Last Friday, Stephen and I, along with some friends of ours, headed up to Hanmer Springs, a natural hotsprings at the northern end of the Canterbury plains. Hanmer Springs is quite a little tourist town, with a well developed hot pools system and loads of accommodation all at quite competitive prices. So we booked ourselves a house and made a weekend of it. With a ski field and lots of trails nearby, this was not too difficult an ask.

On Saturday, we woke up and ate a delicious breakfast of banana-coconut surprise pancakes with real maple syrup and lots of bacon (and black pudding for me). We pulled on our long johns and headed up to the ski field, dropping our friends off on the way for a hike. Little did we know the drive up to the ski field would be just as much of an adventure as actually skiing there.

The road was quite beautiful, winding its way up braided river valleys along gravelly paths, over tiny bridges and right smack, through the middle of farms.

After the final set of switch backs up the face of a cliff we pulled into a tiny parking lot with 7 other cars and pulled on our ski boots in the muddy puddles surrounding the car. It dawned on me there why customs asks about mud on your ski boots when you entre the country. I've never had the experience of walking in mud with my ski boots, but it seems relatively common here.

The snow did start somewhere though, at the far end of the lodge, just past the ski rack some lovely soft, heavy wet snow huddled on the ground, a metre from the lodge. . . just in case. Of what I'm not sure, but it wouldn't touch the place.

Once we had our lift tickets and nutcrackers we headed on up to the lifts. The short one was your average kiwi nutcracker - a must-do experience for a true kiwi-skiing adventure. Essentially, you have to grab onto a moving cable pulled between two pulleys, one at the top of the hill and one at the bottom. Once you are moving with the cable, you want to clinch it in your metal nutcracker (looks kind of like the skeleton of a traditional nutcracker used on nuts) and hold on tight until you reach the top. Word of advice: don't try clinching your nutcracker on from a standstill, this only ever ends in a face plant and being dragged face first up the hill by your arm and the nutcracker tied to your waist.

As you can see the ski field is suffering from the coming spring, but really this only made it better. Without trees there's nothing to try to avoid, but with the exposed grasses there was plenty to try and avoid. One would abruptly stop if one ski hit the grass as it has a somewhat lower slipperyness index than snow.

All in all, it was a glorious day of skiing. The entire morning was sunny with hardly any wind to speak of. We even watched the Farmer's Cup as they raced between flags to the bottom. Amuri Ski Club was first established by local farmers to give them some opportunity for snow sports, today just happened to be the annual day for them to all gather together with their families and throw themselves down the hill as fast as they could.

Around 3pm, the weather changed. Quickly. Very quickly. Like in 5 minutes it went from sunny skies to white out conditions. We took one last, wet ride to the top and stumbled our way down with no ability to see where the surface of the snow changed (ie. dropped away from under you). It was great fun.

We soon decided that it was time to head down, before we got socked in too badly and had to spend the night up in the very crowded lodge. What was snow on the field was rain down in the parking lot, so we quickly changed our shoes, got soaked and clambered into the car. We crept our way slowly back down the precarious cliff side road and watched as the big, fat rain drops turned the road to mush.

Once at the bottom, the skies had cleared and we headed back to town to take a relaxing dip in the hot pools.

Bring Back Black

For Stephen's birthday Jan put me in charge of getting us to an All Blacks game whenever they managed to make their way to Christchurch. Last Saturday night, the men in black were in town and they were playing the Aussies in the TriNations Cup series (kind of like the Stanley Cup for Rugby Union - but with only three teams; South African Springboks, Australian Wallabies and New Zealand All Blacks).

After a quick dinner of pizza (at home) and beer (at the local pub) Stephen, myself and our neighbour biked on down to the stadium. The organizers were trialling their road closures for the Rugby World Cup being hosted here next year, so all the roads within 2-3 blocks of the stadium were blocked off for cars and the streets were absolutely packed with people making their way on foot. We slowly wound our way through them and parked our bikes in front of the stadium gates. The crowd seemed to increase in volume as you approached the stadium, but we pushed our way into it and eventually streamed up the stairs and into the newly completed concrete stands.

Our seats were one step above the cheapest. This meant we were neither sitting right at midfield under cover, but nor were we crammed into the stands at either end of the field incapable of seeing what exactly was happening as the teams ran back and forth across the field. In fact we were pretty well placed in the first half to witness a couple of trys by the All Blacks into the Wallabies end.

It was fun to look around at all the people around us. Across the stadium on the opposite stand there was a little island of yellow (Wallabie colours) drifting in a sea of black and silver. On our side there were little isolated dots of yellow, but mostly it was black . . . . and loud. There was a group a few seats down from us draped in the New Zealand flag with faces painted in black and white screaming as if their lives depended on it. In front of us were a group of older guys full of sarcasm and trash talking for the two Aussies sitting next to them (who seemed to hold their own well enough). Towards the end of the second half, both groups were folding paper airplanes and seeing who could get theirs onto the field of play (the second half of the game was not all that exciting). And behind us was a man and his 6 year-old son, who could have been a rugby commentator. In fact, he was for me.

Despite a lousy forecast the rain was light and there was no wind, so our wool blanket and blue tarp stayed folded and tucked into our bag. Unlike our previous rugby experience when we were drenched and frozen to our seats while watching the New Zealand Warriors (Rugby League) pound some Australian team into the ground. This evening in comparison was pleasant and enjoyable. The game itself was somewhat unexciting though and the All Blacks were unable to achieve the five trys they needed to win the TriNations Cup that night. They're still well in the lead, but we'll just have to wait and see how Australia plays against South Africa in the following weeks.

Thank you Stephen

I've enjoyed the first two years and can't wait to see what the future brings us.

Hmmmm. . . .

Take a second look and what do you see?

Ski Day - Maybe

Yesterday, Stephen and I, along with our neighbours Matt and Nina, went skiing. We stuffed our gear into our little Subaru Leone and piled in after it. Once we were all secured in, we sputtered out onto the road and off towards the mountain of the day, Mt Hutt.

Mt Hutt is a two hour drive away at most. About an hour and a half to the turn off and then half an hour up the access road. With our full car and tiny engine, we puttered to the turn off in about 2 hours. Having left at 7am, we had a good lead on the rush of traffic. And so our ascent began. The speed limit on the road is signed as 40kph, we were in no danger of passing that. We rolled along at around 20kph and struggled up the hill. That is until our engine began to smoke and a loud hissing noise started coming from under the hood. Stephen quickly found a nook to pull into and let the long snake our cars sneak by. We quickly opened the hood and allowed the vast billows of smoke to emerge onto the road. I stood back as jets of yellow liquid spurted from beneath the car and trickled down the gravel road. Hmmmm, that can't be good. Stephen slowly released the coolant cap and we stared down at the near empty tank. Just what we needed. We were far from half way up the hill and our cars' coolant system was gone. What to do? It was still pretty early and our hopes were high, so we let the engine cool down a bit and dumped all the water we had into the tank. Closed her up and started up again.

We got about 500 meters before we started smoking again. Pulled over. Cooled down. Borrowed some water from a passing car (no one was keen to stop and ask if we needed help) and kept going.

Stop.

Cool down.

Apply water.

Move 100-200 meters up hill.

The parking lot seemed to get further and further away as we struggled up the climb. We limped from one section of wide road to the next. Finally, at the overflow parking lot (closed until August, when the real snow gets here) we all tumbled out of the car and took some time to assess - and eat brownies. We were over half way (we thought and hoped), it was already 10:30am, the car was getting worse, we really, really wanted to ski and it was starting to get late (especially if we continued on at the rate we were going). Finally, Stephen, the driver and therefore ultimate decision maker, told us to climb in for one more try at the parking lot. If we could make it to the next ridge line in one go we would keep going, if not, we would turn around and coast down the hill.

Someone in the car must have eaten horse shoes that morning because we made it first to the ridge line, then along the flat section and finally up into the parking lot, all in one go. Perhaps it was the 15 minute cool down or maybe it was luck, whatever it was we were there and we were going skiing.

Despite a poor forecast with snow and wind, the day was gorgeous. Sun, light breeze and temperatures hovering around -1 degrees. My first run was shaky with legs that wanted to give out every time I dropped my knee for a turn, but mostly I held on and made it down. After that, the day only improved. By lunchtime I could go for a good 10-15 turns before my quads would give out and I would collapse at the knees into a happy pile of skies, poles, snow and Erin. We met up with Matt and Nina for lunch and convinced our beginning friends to give the big slope a try. With our assistance (and patience), we spent an hour and a half guiding these budding skiers with knock-knees and nervous speeds down the teeming beginner slope. Compared to the bunny hill where they had so far had all their experience, this was crazy, full of people (some going too fast), sides that dropped away steeply and a hill that was 10 times longer, there was no giving up half way down. Eventually, we all made it down and they returned to the bunny slope to practice some more and we made a mad dash up to the top of the mountain to chase the vanishing beams of sun, now just kissing the ridge line along the top. We skied and we skied and we skied. Enjoying absolutely every minute of it. The ecstasy of each successful turn increasing tenfold as the snow rooster-tailed behind us filling the air with tiny diamonds of light. We raced down and caught the last lift just 2 minutes before it closed and took full pleasure from that final run of the day. My thighs were finally behaving and I was in my own little world of happiness. For the few hundred meters down to the chalet where it was back to the world of people. We all changed, climbed into the car and crossed our fingers for the drive home.

Things didn't start all that well. In fact, the car wouldn't start at all. We eventually nursed it into a belligerent state of rumbling and joined the line of traffic heading downhill. Making it a total of 76 meters before stalling right beside some parked buses making it difficult for anyone to get by. Key turn after key turn, the engine tried but wouldn't start. Stephen got out and fiddled with the choke which had become stuck and that seemed to do the trick as we rumbled back to life and started down again. We rolled along in second cautiously, stalling out once but starting again just as strangely as we continued to roll. When we reached the point in the road where we first exploded our brakes started to reek, so once again we pulled over to cool down. This time people were much more considerate in their offerings of help and instead of 1 in 30 cars stopping, it was 1 in 3. Unfortunately, no one who stopped was a mechanic so we just waited. Finally, after another jiggle with the choke we started up again and I took us down the mountain switching between using the brakes, the transmission and my mad steering skills to reach the bottom.

With highway speeds the engine fan seemed to do much of the cooling for the engine, so we didn't have to worry too much about cooling. We were just working with a higher than normal engine temperature. Although we all knew that if we returned the same way we had come we would have to go through Rakaia Canyon, a rather deep and large canyon with lots of uphill for the poor car. So we turned off towards Methven and the longer road home. This of course meant we had to drive through Methven and slow down, which meant the engine would heat up and explode again. Of course before this happened the car would stall, so intersections became our worst nightmare.

We made it through town and screamed down the highway (as much as a sad, broken little car can) not in the direction of home. The sun was now gone from the sky, as we drove past field after field filled with sleeping sheep and cows. Farms with their glowing windows whispered past our windows (which were constantly open because when the cooling system went so did our heater and defroster) and cars with their bright headlights shot past us in the opposite direction. We finally turned off onto an even smaller road with a tiny sign pointing towards Christchurch and we headed home. Through Dunsandel, Selwyn, Norwood, Burnham. Each town meaning we had to slow down and play gently with the engine so as to avoid either stalling or over heating. Through Rolleston, Weedons and on into Christchurch. By which time I was a pro at driving our half broken car (well, it was probably full broken, but we couldn't let it die just yet). Down Bleinhem, Moorhouse, up Fitzgerald, onto Avonside and into the driveway, where the car happily idled by itself as we stumbled out of our seats.

What a day. But then again, every day is an adventure. Sometimes you just get a little more than others.

Happy Canada Day!

Looking out towards Christchurch from the Port Hills

Living overseas is an interesting experience. It makes you realize what you took for granted back home, the things that defined what home is. For over a year and a half, Stephen and I have been living in Christchurch, New Zealand. Going to school, working, making new friends and most importantly, learning about who we are and where we want to go.

Stephen and I spent our Canada Day quietly. Still having to go to work and school, we made red and white cookies to share around with students, teachers and peers. This was our effort at spreading our pride in the country we call home. A small one, but made none the less. At home, we listened to a couple of pod casts of Definitely Not the Opera from CBC and read some Stuart McLean stories. These were our own personal connections and reminders of tiny aspects of Canadian culture that remind us of home. Not just the country, but the weekly rituals like tuning into a favorite radio show. It's these tiny rituals that we notice most in our daily lives overseas. Things like the radio, the difficulty of finding cranberries in the grocery store, the knowledge of what crokinole is, having everything is english and french, being able to buy rubbing alcohol without being thought of as a drug addict, the fact that Canada Day is hot, sunny and very summery (not Christmas).

Most Canada Days for me involved watching the parade (sometimes taking part) down Main Street in Whitehorse. One year, a couple of friends and I decided to busk on Main Street just before and after the parade. It was a lovely warm, Yukon day, and the streets were packed with people waiting. We were maybe in our mid-teens, so well out of our cute stage meaning we really had to earn our money. But that day, in just 2 hours we took in some $250. I can still remember the high we were all on for the rest of the day. It was great.

When I was older, Canada Day meant BBQ and dinner parties. Friends gathered on the deck, beer or wine in hand. One year we even tried to fire off some fireworks from the deck (despite the light conditions in the Yukon at this time of year). After only one or two we got a visit from a neighbour who also happened to be a fireman who politely informed us that firing fireworks off above the boreal forest at this time of year was perhaps not the best idea.

And then there's Canada Day in Dawson City. The first year Stephen and I did the Yukon River Quest we arrived in Dawson the night before and crashed into bed. The next day, I remember standing on King Street, hand in hand with Stephen, watching the bike parade roll by (of which I had been a part in years gone by). When we went to separate our hands we found we were stuck as our fingers were still swollen like sausages.

Where we come from is an integral part of who we are. It shapes our views and ideas, it influences how we look at the world, and it is a place we return to, if not in body, than in spirit, throughout our lives. With our Canadian cook books up in our kitchen, our maple syrup (quickly disappearing) stashed in our cupboard, our Canadian literature stacked proudly in our shelves and our playlist of Canadian artists on iTunes, we have made sure to surround ourselves in as much Canadiana as possible. Not only to share with any visitors who walk into our home, but to act as touchstones to who we are, where we come from and where we want to go.

Looking South across Lake Laberge

Hobart - Australia

Bangkok airport/shopping mall

After 50 hours of travel induced misery, including 10 hours in the Bangkok airport - where I found a documentary on the Yukon playing in one of the electronic shops, I finally arrived in Hobart. Where I struggled onto the hotel bus and was whisked away to my hotel. I had splurged a little on this last stage of the journey and had taken advantage of the conference reduced price for a 4 1/2 star studio apartment hotel. What a place! Fancy decorating, my own kitchen, huge bathroom and a giant vase of lilies and chocolates from Stephen. I quickly fell asleep dreaming of how close I was to home.

Looking back towards my hotel and the conference venue, the University of Tasmania School of Art

The conference started at 8:30am the next morning, which wasn't a problem as I was up and about at 5:30am. By the time I left my room I was well educated in the stock of the mini bar and my 7 channels of television. The Imagining Antarctica conference is the second in a new annual conference that explores the ideas, images, art, literature and dreams that make Antarctica. The conference couldn't have been more different from the Oslo conference - 60 people versus +2200, delicious food, small venue, much more focused area of interest yet with a broader range of perspectives, from academics to visual artists, curators to writers. We had talks about interpreting the Disney movie Eight Below and how it displaces native Antarctic species, about analysing the journals of Heroic Era explorers to try to assess their psychological reaction to being there, papers on artists experiences in the various artists in Antarctica programs, and on the ideas of wilderness associated with change in the southern continent. There was even a talk that served as a survey of "bad" Antarctic literature, mostly self-published sci-fi and such. It was pretty hilarious.

Some kids versions of the Aurora Australis, one of Australia's Antarctic research vessels

The evenings were also well planned, although I found myself collapsing into bed at the ridiculous hour of 7pm most nights. The first evening, after wrapping up our day of talks and presentations, we were taken by bus up to the Governor General's house/mansion/castle for a reception with him and his wife. It was very proper with individual introductions to the queen's representative and a fine selection of wines, liquors and nibbles offered throughout. We even got a tour of the ground floor, which included the ball room with the largest Huon Pine floor in the Southern Hemisphere/World?, a seemingly gilt dinning room to seat up to 30 distinguished guests (which I guess we were not) and halls of portraits and sculptures. We were politely indicated that it was time to leave at 7pm and were bused back downtown. The second afternoon, we were taken on an Antarctic walking tour of town. Past the docks (which our conference and hotels were situated on), through important buildings and into a pub where a particularly important stained glass window was housed. Again, a most civilized way to end a walking tour. That evening was the conference dinner, a few of us had opted out (it was pricey for students) and we started our evening at a Whiskey brewery on the water front where we were given a fine tasting of their whiskeys and other liquors. The barman recommended a certain Alley Cat pub for our dinner ($5 burgers always sounds good) and off we went. He was right, after what seemed a longer than 5 blocks we found the place pulsing with people and music. We squeezed ourselves inside and managed to find ourselves a table just as our burgers arrived. Chicken, avocado, tomato, lettuce, cheese, sauce, delicious. The last night of the conference, we had drinks at the museum, in amongst an interactive climate change display. So with Australian wine, strawberries, cheese and crackers we brought a close to this second conference and talked about the next.

A back corner of Salamanca Place

The museum's Southern Ocean and Antarctic exhibit

When I had booked my trip tickets so many months ago, I had decided to tack an extra day on at the end of the conference to explore Hobart. This was before I had spent 5 weeks away from home, from Stephen and from my bed. The day passed so slowly. I tried my hardest to enjoy my explorations, but it is so hard when all you can think of is where you are not. I lolled at breakfast at the cafe I had come to use each morning, I meandered slowly through the shops at Salamanca Place and bought some old Japanese fabric and a second-hand kimono and obi, and I swear I read every single sign/board/interpretive panel at the museum and art gallery. Yet it was only 4pm by the time I got back to the hotel with my fresh piece of tuna and salad to grill up on my stove. Bed at 7pm and up at 2am, bright eyed and bushy tailed for my flight at 1pm.

1pm did eventually roll around and I was off to Melbourne to catch my last flight back to Christchurch. Only our plane was broken and once we did get off the ground, we discovered it was too foggy in Christchurch to land so we landed in Auckland. Not where I wanted to be. But at least I was in the right country. So Air New Zealand shouted us rooms and breakfast and we had to sort out our flights the following day. I was so lucky to have Stephen taking care of me, because as soon as he found out we were spending the night in Auckland he booked me on the soonest available flight at noon the following day. Which was good because by the time I got through to the flight rescheduling people (at 4am) the soonest flight was 8pm.

Hobart waterfront, looking out from in front of my hotel

The next morning I almost cried when I looked out the window into seemingly impenetrable fog. But I soldiered on, eating my breakfast and dragging my bags down to the lobby to wait for the bus to the airport. Once at the airport, things didn't look much better, in fact more than half the flights were being cancelled due to the fog. With fingers crossed and glistening eyes I walked through security and willed my plane to land and then take off with me in it.

I arrived 2 hours later in Christchurch and collapsed into Stephens arms. How happy I was to be home.

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PS I don't know if anyone noticed but as my trip progressed I took fewer and fewer pictures, travel fatigue I guess.