Ohakune: The Slow Spring Melt

19th August - 13th September 2014

A metre of snow had fallen over the mountain and it was followed by string of bluebird days which meant every day off I had I would go up the hill to play. Hamish and Rose suggested we go to the other side of the mountain and see what that's like so with Wannes we went over to Whakapapa.

Mount Doom

Whakapapa is so much more of an effort to ski on as almost every lift is a T-bar so you don't get the nice little breaks between runs when your sat on a chairlift. I think I definitely prefer Turoa but it was still a good day out on that side.

Mountains

Chairlift selfie!

Skiing was beginning to lose its excitement for me and as the spring sun was softening the snow up nicely I decided on a less the average weather day to take up a lesson and give snowboarding another shot. I'd been having difficulties turning on my toe edge and I spent all day on that edge trying to master it and suddenly as if someone had just flicked a switch I cracked it! Snowboarding is now favourite thing in the entire world! I made a bit of a video of me, Wannes, Vicky, Rachel and Sarah mucking around.

The first leaver from our department, apart from Beka who we don't count because she never wanted to be there in the first place after quitting as a lifty and then quitting customer relations too, was Marion. She's a little German who liked saying 'KOOL'. She took on the physical challenge in last quiz before she left. We STILL haven't won the quiz which is very upsetting as we've got second twice now!

Go Marion

It was a big week for socials as between the quiz and Marion's leaving drinks there was the biggest night of the season. Turoa Vs Whakapapa Tug of War.

High tech tug of war machine

I had been told by many that this would be the biggest night of the season and the competition gets quite fierce as Turoa had won the Yeti Stick for the last 7 years in a row. It was mostly departments from each sides competing against each other. It got ridiculously loud with chants of TU-RO-A and FUCK WHAKAPAPA and whatever they were chanting, i've no idea because I couldn't here them.

HEAVE!

PULL WANNES

I was in two rounds. The first one was against their customer relations team which we actually lost due to a hulk sized man on there team who doesn't even work in their department! I can't remember who the second pull was against but we beat them. Turoa side beat them quite a few times.

Winning!

PULL!!!

There was so much yelling it was fantastic!!! We were leading by quite lot and getting cocky when in Morgans team she did it one handed with a cigarette in her mouth flipping a finger at Whakapapa. I think the final score was something like 13-4 so as with everything else this season - we thrashed Whakapapa!

Too easy

I made a video. Just a warning it was extremely loud in there!

Marion left at the end of the week so we went for some drinks at Kings on the Friday to spend the vouchers that we won on Monday. It was kind of strange being in Kings without their being a quiz on.

Nice group photo

The first weekend in September was Retro Day at Turoa. We found some stuff stashed in an office upstairs and we dressed up as best we could. I actually quite like the jacket I had and would quite happily have kept it.

Retro?

Retro team

They gave raffle tickets to whoever was in retro gear to be claimed at the Mexican place in town. We went straight there after getting off the bus to claim our free drink. I was waiting for the raffle in case I won anything which made me an hour late for meeting Hamish and Rose for their leaving meal. In fact they even ordered food for me and it was going cold whilst I held out waiting and hoping for something good. I got absolutely nothing but Wannes, the lucky bastard, won a pair of $1300 skis. HE DOESN'T EVEN SKI!

Poser

Anyway, I met Hamish, Rose and Jamie and ate my lukewarm burger before we went to lodge for a few games of pool. The rugby was on so everyone was watching that leaving us to mess around on the pool table for as long as we wanted.

I never miss

We played a few games of Jenga before we came up with the new improved Extreme Jenga where you have to stand on board as well.

Extreme Jenga!

It was a bit of a Franz Josef reunion and farewell. I hadn't seem Jamie since she randomly appeared on the mountain but it would be the last time I would see her as she too was leaving town the following week. It was sad to say bye to Hamish and Rose. We had had some fun days over the winter.

Franz crew

Speaking of reunions. I had a blast from the past when I saw on facebook that Rachel was in town. I worked with here at Gatecrasher about 4 years ago and her ex, Simon, was my boss. I bumped into them in Adelaide a year and half ago too.

Rachel's in town

Bubble weirdness

I came home from work one day to see Morgan perched on the beam in the kitchen like some sort of wall charm blowing bubbles around the place. It was a very strange scene and these bubbles were made of a different stuff so you could stack them. Super weird!

Bubbles!

Sled races

There was a sledder cross competition one day after work which was particularly hilarious. I raced in two teams. One with Wannes pushing me and Lucas down and another where I was pushing Rachel and Sarah. We lost the first round of both but our departments third team with Rachel, Kirsten and Elaine made it to the semi finals. It might have been the quarter finals. I dunno, it was quite hard to follow but hilarious all the same.

The crowd gathers...

The races begin

On one super warm weekend the mountain was closed due to wind but it was roasting in town. There was a group of us who mucked around in a field all afternoon with a frisbee whilst Mark got his epic kite out. It looked pretty windy so it didn't look all that safe when you saw he was strapped to it so no one else had a go.

Kite flight

Frisbee fun

halo ring

It was borderline BBQ weather so we went for it at Rachel and Sarah's place. We played Taboo which is always fun after a few drinks.

BBQ!

Fun times

There had been no significant snowfall for over 4 weeks and we were beginning to think that the season may come to an early finish but, whilst this was a really warm day, the strong winds were coming from the south...