Snow time like the present.......

So we finally managed to get jobs and somewhere to live in QT, after coming close to leaving with funds running low and no jobs in sight.

Laura worked as a massage therapist in Aspects day spa.......the hours were a little slow until the ski season really kicked off but the hourly rate was a good one!!

Mike eventually found work out of QT in Arrowtown and had to resort to approaching random builders in the street asking if they knew of anyone with work!! It paid off and he spent his season painting Mon - Friday and riding all weekend!!

Laura's hours were a little more intense. As the massage work was a little thin. A friend of Mikes boss found Laura work on breakfast shift waitressing three (early) mornings a week. Laura was oncall 7 days a week, yes 7 days a week, 9.30am - 8.30pm with the day spa also!!

Once the work picked up Laura was pretty much working every hour god sent. When she wasnt it was straight up the mountain!!

We managed to get riding time together night skiing or in the morning on weekends and this was largely thanks to our investment in Ola, our little Toyota Corolla.

She was an olden but kinda a gooden. 1800cc Diesel estate auto who did a steady 15 mph up the mountain letting out a James Bond smoke screen to warn off tail gaters behind wanting to get up the mountain at a normal speed like 30mph!!

Ola may have had a wonky smile but she was our little work horse. She got Mike to work everyday, took us to the supermarket so no more 20 min walks with heavy bags (Laura eats alot) and up the mountain which which was a good 20kms away and up some dodgy unsealed mountain roads!!

The house was 15 minutes to town and 20 mins home (up a very steep hill) and we lived with Eran and Mikie. Eran was from Israel but had lived in QT on and off for 8 seasons. Mikie was from Japan and had been in the house a couple of months. The house had pros and cons. Clean and friendly yes, warm no!! We had a nice wood burner in the lounge but this was the only heat source for the whole 3 bed house!! Our first night in a room with no heating was a sharp wake up call to buy more clothes, bedding and heat!! So thats exactly what we did. The sally army shop clothed us for the winter and kept us warm in the cold perma-frost house. We also brought a heater for the room and a decent blanket which made life alot more comfortable but sleeping fully dressed became the norm.........romantic!!??!!

We settled into our new existence though and once Lauras hours picked up we were never home long enough to worry about heating and once our heads hit the sack we were usually exhausted and out for the count.

We had a pretty good life style once we had brought all our snowboarding stuff and each friday pay day would come around meaning we were cashed up for a good weekend. We made some nice friends who we would live with, work with, drink with and ride with and the weeks flew by!!

we started boarding up coronet peak, known by the locals as concrete peak, due to it's hard/iciness. we felt like we had conquered coronet, so for laura's first day off in a month good old ola took us to cadrona, this had faster lifts and longer runs, it also had a baby park that tempted us in for a few jumps and some boxes. We also mastered 180s on the piste here, and so it began mike's love of park. We both found that we preferred going up the mountain with each other.We would often watch snowboarding dvds and lessons on you tube by seirra snowboards, before heading up. We loved the mountain, and although we did have a few bumps and bruises it appeared the mountain loved us back as we came out of a whole season relatively unscathed. we spent our last week at the remarkables, which was great for mike as he improved in the park, managing to almost land a 20ft jump!! Laura was happy to stick to the baby park, occasionally having enough speed to make it all the way over a box!!Our last night in queenstown we decided to do the thing we had loved most about queenstown....you'll be surprised to hear it wasn't drinking!! We headed up coronet peak for our last night riding session, and truly shredded up the slopes, with a dj playing and mike using the natural features on the slopes to pull off some gnarly 180s and indie grabs. what an awesome way to say goodbye!!