In the interim between waiting for work to start and arriving, John and I moved to the different accommodation across the street and were much happier for it in the end. It's cheaper, we can lock our rooms, and it's warm. In the first few weeks the other cottages had trouble once more with the landlord's son as he had nicked a few things from the cottages while we were at work. Our friends Lenka and Andrew had a litre of Bacardi stolen and a ski instructor had $140 missing. The owners quickly took care of it, though, and had a meeting with the guy stressing that he had to hide all the keys from his stepson. Since then we haven't heard of any other problems, but John and I were just glad we didn't have to deal with it at all.
It was a lot of waiting around and watching movies, though on that Sunday we decided to head to a place called Alpine Springs in town where everyone got a voucher for a free ice skate and soak in their hot pools. We ended up running into some of our co-workers Lenka and Andrew, the couple from Czech Republic and Manchester, England respectively, and Natalie and Pete from England as well. Between the 6 of us, since none of us are instructors, we all kind of bonded together. We all enjoyed the evening together before heading down to the local pizza place/pub for some dinner where we also ran into the owners as well. Apparently they frequent there a lot.
We finally opened on that Thursday, right in time for the school holidays that began that weekend and went for the following two weeks. It is the busiest time for the ski field and we never ended up getting a break during that time as we never had bad enough weather to close the mountain. We ended up working for 17 days straight.
It was good money, though. And the owners of the place are just so nice that it's great to work with them. Every Monday they take a staff van to a town called Timaru for us to go grocery shopping at the big grocery store called Pak' N' Save, as we just have a small general store in town. Every Wednesday is staff night at the local pub, Pepe's, and the owners usually come out to meet us as well. One of first few days that we were working I took in a ton of money through my till and balanced perfectly at the end of the day, so the owner bought me a nice bottle of wine that Wednesday night.
Every Thursday they also take a staff van to the neighboring town of Twizel where there is a climbing wall you can use for $10. John went the first week, but I went to the last Harry Potter movie instead at an old theater about 1 hour away in a town called Geraldine. It was a cool, old theater and they had lots of couches in addition to seats. I went by myself, sat down on the couch with a takeaway burger, hot chocolate, and a blanket--I was in my happy place.
Other than that it's just been work, work, work. We were waking up at 6:40 and getting picked up ay 7:30 to head up the road to the ski field. John and I were going early with our boss Kylie in the mornings during the school holidays to get things going before the rest of the staff arrived.
We get so spoiled here, though, as almost every morning when we drive up and every evening when we drive down we get to witness the most beautiful sunrises and sunsets. It's crazy how gorgeous they are each and every day.
The view from my ticket window isn't bad either.
John has to cook homemade soup every morning and I have to get all the ticket office tills all set. I've learned a lot about banking and even more about keeping your cool around asshole customers--of which we have had a few--though most people are really nice.
We in the ticket office also help in the cafe when necessary and now we are all taking turns working in a small hut called the Von Brown that sits at the top of one of the ski hill and sells beer and spirits. It's a cute little place and really fun to work there. During school holidays two local girls, both 16, helped John and Lenka out in the cafe. They were nice and I think John enjoyed ragging on them, but one of them was not the brightest and didn't have the greatest work ethic.
Also we get an hour-long paid break during the day. During school holidays we didn't always get that much time as it depended how busy we were, but now that things have calmed down we can go skiing for free during our daily breaks. The ski field provided us with old staff gear that we can keep for the duration of the season so we don't have to worry about rentals. John ended up getting some gear from a popular (and expensive) snowboard brand called Burton, all for free! It's great for John for practicing his snowboard skills.
There are some really great perks about working at a smaller ski field, and even though we don't get much time off we still make good money and enjoy our days.
This past Monday was our first day off, as the mountain was closed for the day to allow us to recuperate after the busy holiday period. It was also me and John's second anniversary so we decided to head 2 hours south to Wanaka for a nice dinner and skiing at Treble Cone the next day.
We ended up heading down with Natalie and Pete, and Pete's cousin Ed who was in town on his travels around the world. John and I just had dinner by ourselves at a nice restaurant called Alivate in town on Sunday night and got a double room in a lodge for the evening. The next morning we all headed up to Treble Cone together to go skiing for the day.
In NZ, if you are an employee at a ski field you get discounts at almost all other ski fields in the country. Usually it's 50% off your lift pass, which is what we got at Treble Cone, which was great. We also all had our own gear already as well. Treble Cone was definitely a more challenging mountain than ours, and at least 5 times the size. Natalie, Pete, and I all struggled a bit throughout the day as we aren't the best skiiers, but we stuck to the green and easier blue slopes and enjoyed ourselves just the same.
The view at Treble Cone was gorgeous and it was a beautiful sunny, cloudless day.
We also enjoyed the luxury of a chairlift, as our hill isn't quite big enough to justify one so we just have something called a T-Bar lift that brings you up the hill. During the day we also met up with the head of Ski Patrol at our mountain, a really nice Australian guy named Joel, who was there interviewing for a ski patrol position at a resort in India. He's a really nice guy and did a season in Utah and has some crazy videos from his off-piste skiing adventures. He gave me a few pointers as obviously he is a really good skiier.
I managed to get a quick video of our skiing snowboarding skills. Unfortunately, John tried to do a fancy jump in his and ended up face planting into the snow. It's quite funny and I'm sorry to derive you of the pleasure of seeing it, but John forbids me to post it :)
After a long, arduous, but fun day we headed back down into Wanaka to grab a beer and do some grocery shopping before making our way back to Tekapo. We haven't even finished half the season yet, but it's gone by so fast. We only have a few months left in NZ and are just enjoying our remaining time here!
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