14th September - 13th October 2014
Winter returned with another metre of snow falling over the space of a week. This meant some more epic skiing and riding with the others. Even Rachel D made it up the Giant chair lift although it did take her almost two hours to get down!
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| Giant chair riding fun |
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| Do a trick Wannes |
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| Vicky made it to the top |
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| Sarah bombing it! |
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| More snow |
There was quite an event that I seemed to have forgotten about in my previous entry so here it is...
The last major snowfall had meant chains were needed on the road which, on this particular day, was my job. I jumped in one of the cars with Dan who's a big chief in the roadies department. We were taking it slow as the was obviously a lot of ice on the road when from behind a blind corner came the rather large staff bus. Dan tapped on the breaks to slow down and the wheels locked sending us sliding straight into the side of the bus. The front corner of the car was all squashed in and tyre was burst. The bus only a small dint in the side as its absolutely solid! Everyone was fine, just a little bit more awake than before. Dan drove the car to a lay-by whilst swearing a lot and I waited for another car to take me to the chain bay. It was an interesting start to the day and my first ever car crash!
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| Pre-drinks in the lodge |
I only went to one lodge party in the entire season. They were a fancy dress night once a fortnight in the lodge bar next door to my accommodation. Normally I would just have an early night but as this one involved jelly wrestling and a wet t-shirt competition and it seemed slightly bigger than usual I thought I would tag along.
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| Beach party |
The whole thing was very disorganised and disappointing but it was funny to watch Morgan in the jelly wrestling. The big pool of jelly started deflating so that the it went all over the floor so it got quite messy. It was a good night with everyone despite Sarah and Vicky not coming and Wannes not being able to make it. It was quite a late night so it was lucky the next day was a closed day. Mountain roulette was won that day!
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| Morgan wrestling |
On our bonus day off I went with Wannes and Nele to Taupo and I finally got my hair cut. It had long since reached the point of ridiculousness. It came as quite a shock to most people when I came back with everyone doing a double take.
One of the frustrating things about living at the lodge is the amount of noise you get when there's a party going on. There is a toilet downstairs so one night Todd set up several barriers to keep the downstairs people downstairs so they wouldn't be screaming outside our rooms when we are trying to sleep. It worked quite effectively.
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| Todd's obstacle course |
There was a house party at the Maire Way house that weekend. It was Rob's leaving party. He lived with Rachel, Sarah, Vicky and others. I barely saw him the entire evening. There was quite a lot of people there between Customer Relations and F&B.
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| Big cheesy grin please....nailed it! |
It was an interesting start to the night with a few rounds of 'I have never' where we learnt about Alex's and Kirsten's previous encounter. Courtney also created what is now her catchphrase - "TITTIES!". I'll say no more!
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| Dance off?! |
The middle was quite crazy too. We had a few shots and Kirsten and Rachel had a dance off. Well, it wasn't really a dance off... there's not really a way to explain it. Just look at the picture. The look of shock on Rachel's face kind of says it all.
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| Piano? |
I'm guessing there was a song with a piano it at some point? Lucas introduced us to his favourite dance move, the dance stomp! The rest gets hazy!
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| Rave! |
The Turoa Ball came as the beginning of the end in some ways. It was the first of the end of season parties and a chance to dress up. We are used to seeing people under layers of clothing and goggles so the theme was Masquerade so we still didn't have to look at anyone's faces.
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| Kirstens Birthday |
Before that though we celebrated Kirstens birthday with pre-drinks and a cake at her place before heading to the Suitcase for the ball.
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| Me with Wannes and Nele |
It was largely an uneventful night. There was the novelty of the photo thingy which entertained us for about an hour.
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| Me big face! |
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| Department photo! |
The story of the night was probably the DJ who made me extremely angry. He had no idea what he was doing. Popping on a party classic to get everyone to the dance floor then cutting it off after 30 seconds to some crap remix of a crap song so everyone left. I even asked for a song which everyone was loving until he yet again stopped after 30 seconds. At this point I started yelling at him! He didn't read the room at all. Absolute moron!
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| Another bluebird day |
You never know when the last day riding will be so when your presented with a bluebird day on your day off you have to make the most of it and yet again we did. Wannes led me out of the ski boundary on this occasion which i was a bit sceptical about but it was definitely worth it. The Glacier is an epic natural bowl that is so wide and open. It looked stunning and there wasn't a single person there!
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| The Glacier |
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| Dave drama |
Now this is a prime example of a cock up! Dave, the IT guy, managed to get himself stuck for two whole hours upside down on piece of rope hanging over a cliff. I think this picture was from a customer and circulated for a while. Oh how we laughed! Possible the funniest thing I've seen all season! Sorry Dave.
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| WINNERS! |
WE WON THE QUIZ! Finally! At the 13th time of asking, unbelievably, we actually won! It was a momentous occasion. We won a bag of goodies and $60 drink voucher. We saved the vouchers and the 1kg of jelly beans for the next and last quiz of the season where we got second for a $40 voucher and another 1kg of jelly beans. So by the end of that night we were drunk and very hyper! The quiz was the best night of the week for me. Sarah and I didn't miss a single one! Gutted its finished!
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| Argentinians House |
The leaving events were coming thick and fast now with the Argentinians leaving party. Gaston I knew from doing chains, Enzo and Diego were lifties. I left it quite late to get to know these guys and only really spoke to them when Wannes and Nele invited me to an event in town. I'm not sure what it was for but there was magic, drawing and dancing lessons. Diego tried some card tricks on me but they didn't work. I'm not sure if I was doing something wrong or not.
Wannes then showed me some of his card tricks. It was the whole 'choose a card' thing and he got me the first two times and I was impressed by it but the last one was ridiculous. He laid out about 12 cards on the table and told me to touch one while he looked away. He then 'felt' the cards by passing a hand over them before selecting the exact card I touched. He did this twice! I tried to figure out for ages how the hell he did it and he swore he wasn't cheating. It was infuriating. Later on he told me the Nele who had been standing next to him had been tapping his foot as he passed his hand over my card! I was mortified! I thought Nele was on my side and she didn't know how it was done either but she was the secret assistant! I felt cheated!!! I told her so the next day when I saw her and she found it hilarious! I suppose it was.
Anyway, the party. It was a bring you on food kind of thing so I brought some Apple Crumble. It was kind of cheating because it wasn't making anything but it went down well. It was nice socialising with people I don't normally talk to.
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| Dancing and eating - new skill learnt |
The next day was our departments end of season party with a BBQ at Annah's house. Well it was more of an indoor BBQ due to the weather. It was another bring your own food thing so I brought some burgers and some buns. The was quite a lot of good food there actually which put my cheap burgers to shame but never mind.
There was a countdown of karaoke classics on the TV and I got more and more excited as it counted down hoping for my all time favourite, Aerosmith - I Don't Wanna Miss A Thing. It didn't chart at all which is a crime! Luckily the next programme was Queen Vs Aerosmith and what was the first Aerosmith song? Oh yes! I DON'T WANNA CLOSE MY EYES..................Scream it, love it!
After our awesome singing I was introduced to the card game 'Cards Against Humanity' which is a whole barrel of fun when your drunk. The idea is to make the funniest answers to a question that is asked. The winner is usually the funniest answer. Its a whole heap of innuendo!
The game was going really well until Sarah caused utter carnage by breaking the table!
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| Blurry sing-a-long |
In the month of August each department was tasked with creating their
own F!SH video. F!SH is an organisation that goes around businesses
telling people to "choose your attitude" and "have fun" etc. They take
example from a fish market in America, hence the name.
This
kind of thing is right up my street. I've been making videos of
holidays and stuff ever since I've had a digital camera. I came up with
the general idea of the video and with the help of a few creative minds,
Wannes in particular, we put together this video.
What seemed like an age later it was finally time to find out who the winner was in the last week of the main season. The day after Annah's BBQ after staff skiing which in itself was epic! We closed as normal at 4pm for 30 minutes before re-opening the top lift for staff only. They had groomed the main runs for us so as it was a smooth and open space with no one in the way. I was absolutely bombing it down and it was sooooo much fun.
After that we all gathered in the Alpine Cafe for the big reveal of the F!SH video. They were played them in reverse order with Whakapapa's videos in 3rd, 4th and 5th. This meant a hatrick for Turoa over Whakapapa after we also won the dodgeball and the tug of war. Last year Customer Relations lost out to what was quite a rubbish video. This year we also missed out on the top prize but the Lift Ops video was actually quite good. I think it must have been close and I think ours edged it a little but I'll take second.
We won 6 bottles of wine, some belts, a stack of stickers and heaps of lollies and fish chocolate bars. I don't drink wine but that was OK because I had been giving me own gifts from the department for organising and making the video. I got a bottle of Cafe Patron which is an expensive coffee flavoured tequilla which got polished off at the house party. I also got a $50 voucher for the pizza place in town which I shared with Wannes and Nele. Nele had helped by pointing out a very obvious spelling mistake that would have been hugely embarrassing had I handed it in so I thought that warranted a free pizza!
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| So serious |
Another day, another thing ending. It was the last Jam Night at Crater Bar. I had only been to this a couple of times but it was always good. People just go up and sing or play an instrument and its usually songs you know. The main story of the night was our friend Laura from new world trying to take home what looked like a 12 year old!
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| Awkward photo bomber |
A very busy week. Saturday was the annual Peak to Keg challenge which is no easy feat. You start by skiing down the mountain to base. Running for 6km down the mountain road before jumping on a bike for the rest of way. You have then got to dump you bike around the corner and run to a pint of a beer which you then have to drink as fast as you can. Races can be won or lost in the last part of the race as our boss Elaine found out when she lost three places while trying to finish her drink.
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| The Keg part of the challenge |
Sunday 12th October is kind of the unofficial last day of the season. Its the last day of the school holidays and the last busy day. After this, some cafes and lifts close and we lose half the staff. In our department we would be losing Morgan, Lucas and Wannes. Many people asked me how I would cope once Wannes left as I hung out with him and Nele most days after work so I would become something of a lost sheep.
For now though we went out riding one last time and that evening we had another party at the Maire Way house. It was a bit of a slow burner this time around but once it started things got messy. There were several parties happening in town that night and a few Food & Bev joined us later on including Vicky. I only saw her for about 5 seconds before she started clutching the toilet. The rest of us had a bit of a rave in the living including some unexpected nakedness (not from myself) until 4am!
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| Why are people half naked? |
I still had a couple of weeks left of work but everything had changed with things closing and people leaving. This is why I called it the unofficial end of the season because it wasn't the same after the 12th. I made a video of the highlights of the season and showed it to everyone at the party. I think it went down well.
