After dropping off our visitors, Kieran and Belinda invited us to stay on for a few more days, as they had other visitors dropping by, and reckoned the more the merrier. A winemaker friend of Belinda’s (look for ‘Blocks’ in your local wine store sometime in the next few years!) and relatives of some of their American friends popped in over the weekend; you can’t stop K&B from entertaining, you can only hope to contain them! For a few days I helped Kieran with bottling, labeling, and other bits and pieces in the brewery while Becky helped out around the house. With the southerly dumping snow in the nearby mountains, we took a day to do some southern hemisphere skiing at Mt. Lyford, a small ‘club field’ in the mountains north of Canterbury. Getting to the field was as much of an adventure as the skiing itself, as the field lay a good five miles up a snowy, at times steep mountainous road from the highway. Chains were definitely needed, and while we had a set in Belinda’s car, one of the hooks was bent, causing the chain to pop off, so we had to hitch our way up the mountain. For K&B’s son Oscar and the other Americans, they had no problem getting a ride quickly, but Becky and I had to hike for a half hour before we were able to flag somebody down, not good times. However, the family that gave us a ride to the field were really nice people, and as we would soon find is typical of just about everyone we meet in this area, knew K&B.
Andrew looks happy to be at the ski field (instead of walking to the ski field...)
So finally we made it to the top and got skiing in the afternoon, which was great. NZ skiing is different in that it’s all above the treeline, so there’s few natural boundaries and no glades, not that we’re good enough to dodge trees; my skill level is restricted to making it down with only a few falls and negotiating the chairlifts. Unfortunately, since it was a club field, Lyford didn’t have any chairlifts, only T-bars and tow ropes. For skiers, these are just fine, but they are definitely not made for snowboarders. Having never really used either device, I fell off them at least ten times on the day. Let’s just say it’s frustrating to fall on your way up the mountain, a new and exciting experience I’m thrilled to share with you all. It was easily the most humbling day on the slopes I’ve had since I learned how to ride, and I’ve had my share.
In the end, I did figure out how to use the T-bars pretty well, but it involved jamming one end of the bar about as high up my crotch as humanly possible to keep me stable as I wobbled up the hill. I may not be able to have children in the future, but I did get up the hill! And even that didn’t work every time. The ropes were even worse, because as a snowboarder you basically have to wedge the disc at the end of the rope behind your front thigh and hope it holds in place til you reach the top. Verdict: not easy. I’ve decided that both the T-bars and tow ropes can smell fear, and they will show no mercy to rookies. Using them made me unexpectedly nostalgic for the steep and often icy run-outs at the ski fields in Vermont.
Andrew finally masters the T-Bar
Since it was really early in the season, there wasn’t heaps of snow, and the runs were really short, especially when you take into account the work involved in getting up the hill. But it was good to get riding for the first time in a good year and a half, and the views were just great, making it worth it overall. After an exhausting afternoon (at least for me), we had to hitch our way back down the mountain. Oscar and the Americans just caught a ride with the same fellow who gave them a ride up, a new snowboarder who had at least a moderate case of OCD and a predilection for odd porn/tribal/screechy/British/techno music. We caught a ride with a couple of normal-seeming Kiwi blokes about our age.
It seemed like a fine idea at the time, but we got part of the way down and had to wait for their buddy to ski down the back side of the mountain to the road, where he thought it would be a good idea to snowboard alongside the car like a young Marty McFly. That didn’t work out so well, and he picked up some nasty scratches on his board from the gravel. His buddy then proceeded to drive down the mountain like a maniac, doing about 60km/h with chains down a snowy road with no guardrails. More than a little frightening, especially when he did an accidental 180ยบ on one of the corners. Nothing like losing control of the car with a snowy precipice lurking only a few feet away. Luckily that calmed him down and he drove at a reasonable speed the rest of the way. Unfortunately, I think I can still see the nailmarks in my leg from where Becky grabbed me during the spin.
Enjoying the mountain view
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