Skiing/the rest of NZ…

So we arrived at the base of Mt Hutt got into our gear and purchased our passes for the afternoon. The weather was pretty decent – all was going well. For a while anyway…

We all had a few goes down the learner slope so Matt and Pete could get a feel for being on skis and learn to turn etc. Pete managed to fall over before he got to the lift to go up this slope – Matt 1, Pete 0 I believe. They seemed to pick it up a little – well they could both go straight anyway – so we decided the best way was to throw them in at the deep end and go up on the green run. This seemed like a good idea at the time – what was the worst that could happen? Well… about an hour later and we had got to about half way down the slope. Majority of time Matt had spent on his arse, Pete had gone ahead slightly but also encountered a couple of heavy bails including one which resulting in his infamous convict hat blowing off the side. Eventually Matt started getting the hang of turning without just falling and getting back up facing a different way so we continued down the slope, until Pete fell in front of Matt whilst he was on a roll – causing some more time on the deck. When Pete went to clip back into the skis he noticed that the binding was bent and he wasn’t able to get back into it. In the end he had to walk back to the top of the slope where he handed his skis to a women to take down for him and he got a lift down on a snow-mobile. Meanwhile Sam and Matt went up for another go. When we met up with Pete again, he had got his ski fixed and so we headed back up in the mindset that it can only get better for him. We were wrong. About half way down the mountain, when he was just getting the hang of it, he took another good tumble, banging his head and this time breaking the opposite ski binding. This “threw him into a rage” as he had to walk up the mountain again and follow the same procedure – this time coming down in the chair lift. Whilst Sam and Matt did a couple more runs Pete got the other ski fixed and we met him at the cafe. He didn’t fancy going up again.

Anyway, Matt went up for a final run and managed to get all the way down without falling; out of control for the majority of the run but nevertheless – done well. Sam did a few more runs and ventured to the top chair lift where it was flippin freezing and windy while Matt waited with Pete. This is where it gets more interesting… Pete turns to Matt and says “ I think ive got concussion – I feel like ive been drinking and my vision is a bit blurry.” When Sam had finished his final run we decided it was a good plan for Pete to go get checked out by the on site medical centre. Little did we know that when Sam and Matt returned from waiting in the cafe for a while we would see pete hooked up to oxygen and a blood pressure monitor and shortly be informed that he was going to be transported by helicopter to Christchurch hospital – an hour and a half drive from where we were supposed to be staying that night.

As I’m sure pictures will show you I got into a helicopter to be airlifted to Christchurch hospital, I was not the only person to be airlifted to hospital on this day, I shared the journey with a girl who had at about the same time as I hit my head had faceplanted the ice, unfortunately they had deemed me to be serious so the paramedic in the back of the hospital spent the whole journey staring at me and asking if I was OK, if being in a helicopter on your way to hospital wasn’t disconcerting enough this certainly pushed it over the edge. The helicopter journey was about 20 minutes long and the views were amazing but that was not really what was on my mind, we landed about 10 minutes from the hospital in a park where an ambulance was waiting to take us the rest of the way at blistering pace. We arrived at hospital to be put in beds in the corridor next to the nurses station so they could monitor us closely. When the nurse eventually came to see me they did all the checks I had already had twice which consists of checking my neck isn’t broken, taking me pulse and blood pressure, checking my pupils were dilating correctly etc.

Meanwhile, Matt and Sam were left too drive down the 12km mountain up to the ski base in the quickly dissapearing light before sorting out the hired skiing gear that needed to be returned and the hostel booking that we had for that night (but hadn’t paid for yet) whilst squeezing in an awesome battered Mars or Moro bar; of course. This all went pretty well – the ski store gave us a full refund for Pete s equipment, we didn’t have to pay a penny to the hostel for a late checkout and the battered mars bar was potentially the best ever. To finish it off we decided to push the boat out and get a full fish and chips before setting off to Christchurch. After about an hour and a half – inc a short stop for our pudding of ice cream – we reached Christchurch hospital to find Pete doing what he does best… sleeping! After a short chat with the doctor he was discharged into our care. This inevitably led to many comments and threats that we would take him back to hospital if he was to say, snore that night, for example. After Pete effectively inhaled a subway because he had not eaten in 10 hours we checked into Charlie B’s where we stayed the first time we were in Christchurch. They have possibly the best mattresses in all of New Zealand. The next day we went into the city centre were Sam designed and booked his tattoo and matt booked his to be designed properly on the day he got it done. After that was done we hopped in the car and because we were in Christchurch a few days early we decided to head north to a place called Hanmer Springs we new there was very little there but we went to go into the hot springs they have there after all we had driven most of the south island in the last few days and after the the Mount Hutt incident we thought we would just take a day to relax. Hanmer springs is only 2 hours north of Christchurch and is basically a road with some hot pools in it, but is well worth visiting. We went to the hot pools to chillax and go in their sulphur pools to smell like a stink bomb, but apparently so good things for you, who knew? After being slightly disturbed by the smell we went back to our hostel to eat our dinner and make win cake – atrleast I thought so. Sam and pete were less impressed by the small cake and how it turned out. We rented Wedding Crashers, lolled heartily and went to sleep to head back to C’Church the next day.
After arriving back in C’Church we booked into good old BASE, as we knew it would be a decent hostel and did sweet fuck all, knowing we could just chill out for the next few days and our last in New Zealand. The next day Sam dropped the car back off and he and Pete went out to get ham and came back with $100 of food…..riiight. Whilst a bit confused initially, it soon became clear that all the food would be eaten before we left NZ. And it was…mostly. Anyways, back to the food later. We again did naff all all day and prepared ourselves for the the next day were sam and I would get tattooed.
Not quite sure what to expect when we walked into DV-8 tattoo, which I would highly recommend if anyone ever happens to be in C’Church and wanting a tattoo, I watched as Sam went first having his already been drawn up a few days earlier. I watched as Sam looked mostly comfortable but with a few painful bits – it was hard to tell from the other side of the room going on only his hands clenching to guess that he was feeling the pain. Well after about an hour, he was done and it was my go. Pete and Sam went with Kris and Neils for a well earned subway and to pay Sams fine whilst he prepared mine on his win I-mac. Sam and Pete returned when I was about half way through to see that it was going pretty well – not too many skirmishes just a decent amount of fist clenching. After a short while all was complete and a second visit to subway was in order before we returned to the hostel. That evening we had a few drinks at the hostel with Kris and Neils before venturing out to the bar below which turned out to be pretty poor. We then went for a tour of what C’church has to offer at night before returning home in the early hours of the morning – Pete admittedly most worst for wear.

Advertisement