Jen Hillam: Ski Day in Queenstown

The day started out just like your typical ski day, although with a bit earlier start. The resorts aren’t an easy 20 minutes drive away here. I got ready crazy fast or firefighter style like I like to call it, as it the case with most ski days. Why waste time when you know the routine. It was a little harder though when I was doing it the dark and trying to not wake any of my 10 sleeping roommates. It was a pretty smooth morning as Marian and I had already picked up our rental gear the night before, the only thing we hadn’t been able to reserve was bus tickets. So I called as soon as the office opened to see if there was still room on the hostel ski bus to treble cone, our resort of choice for that day. The bus was already out starting to pick people up but they quite graciously allowed us to give them money to ride on the bus. Basically it wasn’t a big deal because there was plenty of room. We got a free breakfast of toast from the hostel and then stole Josh’s nutella to make PB and nutella sandwiches for lunch, so nutritious!

Our bus came a few minutes later then the schedule which gave us a few extra minutes to enjoy our breakfast and wrap up our sandwiches. Our bus driver was a lovely chap named Ian. He gave us a little tour of the area as we made the hour and a half drive to the highest ski resort around, TC as they call it here. The drive was beautiful! It was like we were driving past giant postcards except for it was real life! There is a picture below that I got a bit of people on the bus in the foreground or else you wouldn’t believe that I had actually seen such a place.

So we took to the slopes....and well it was an adventurous first run. The first surprise was the fact that our rental skis had no edges, the literally would not grad at all. The next surprise made this even worse....it hadn’t snowed in 2 weeks. Now on the rare occasion that I have skied during such a barren time I can still usually find some soft stuff or at least something through the trees, nope. To top it all off there was only 2 chair lifts...and this was one of the best resorts in the entire country. Not to really put it down too much, it is no their fault it hadn’t snowed and my skis were subpar, it just required a little more creativity. The coverage was the equivalent of skiing Snowbird in June, thank goodness for the rentals. First run of the day I hiked over some grass and rocks with my skis on to get a good picture ha ha, don’t worry though I was careful to not do any real damage, but I got some sweet pics! The morning turned out pretty good though. The sun was shining and the view over the lake in front of us was magnificent. Ian said they were expecting a storm in the middle of day and I didn’t want to believe him, it was just too nice of a day. But then about 2 pm, the clouds moved in and it started finally snowing! It was just really a nice dusting of flakes but it was better than nothing. On one of our runs we rode up with an Aussie dude skiing by himself, the next run he kind of followed me, as best an Aussie could. At this point I was trying to turn down a big steep of iced over mogels, because if I wasn’t going to enjoy the snow I figured I would at least try and get my legs burning a bit. We saw him a few runs later at the top and he took some photos for us and then like the friendly skier I am, I invited him to ski with us since he was alone. He was actually alright, I didn’t know there was much skiing in aussieland but he said he used to ski a lot there. Unfortunately I can’t remember his name for the life of me so he will just forever be the aussie dude at Treble Cone. We a took a break for lunch and he left us to go find his friends on the beginner hill.

Lunch was a good time because you know I had just put my sandwich in my pocket...and it was big bread so well...it was a little smushed. But it was cool because it smushed in the shape of a heart! I was fine with that because I love peanut butter and nutella sandwiches and now I know they love me too. While we were eating a group of people sat next to us and had just purchased these big hot lunches. After they left I turned to Marian and said “hey how do you feel about being a shameless ski bum? I could use a little something else for lunch” She agreed and I sneakily grabbed the whole thing fries that the people had just left in a pile to be thrown away and we enjoyed a cup of untouched French fries with our sandwiches.

So skiing over all was a pretty good time, even with 2 lifts it wasn’t very crowded. I was impressed with how much of the mountain they were able to cover with just 2 lifts. You could pretty much access 2 full sides and since there are no trees, it was all wide open terrain. It was a lot of fun and I’m glad I did it and can say I skied in Queenstown, New Zealand, but for all you peeps back home, we’ve got it good! So be grateful and made sure it dumps snow here before you plan any ski trips to New Zealand or you’ll probably be a little disappointed.

Afterwards we got back on the bus, with the bus driver that had been skiing all day too. This lucky guy has the best job ever. He just picks people up on a bus and drives them to the resort, skis all day then brings everyone back and gets paid to do it! I want his job. Basically ever single person on the bus fell asleep it was pretty funny to see everyone stretched out over the seats with all their gear, good thing it was a fairly empty bus.

After we got back we were starving so we hurried and dropped our gear off. On our way to the gear rental shop we walked past the CookieTime shop and they were giving out free samples so we got some free little cookies. We also discovered it was happy hour which meant it was cookietime! On our way back we realized we should probably be good friends and get Josh and Alyssa first. So we hurried home and told them is cookietime. We took wicked fast showers and ran down to be in time for happy hour. So before dinner we enjoyed some fresh scrumptious chocolate chip cookies. Cookietime is pretty big here, it like Krispy Kreme of cookies and in New Zealand.

Now that we had dessert out of the way, it was time for dinner. We had previously decided to go to an Italian restaurant called The Cow. Alyssa and I shared spaghetti bolognese and had a romatic lady and the trap moment. After dinner with so much skiing and running around I was dead. So I retired to my bed for a late nap. But of course this was Queenstown and we had to go out. So just after 10 I got back up and got ready. We couldn’t find anywhere with live music so just found another place. My travel mates all got some drinks and I just chilled as we relaxed, until some more Aussie started talking to us so we hung out with them for a bit. There was a little dance floor but not a lot of people on it, before we left we decided the four of us would go dance for a bit. It was fun for a few songs but we didn’t last long and I was pretty beat from the day.