After an 8 year hiatus, and being brutally violated by the jetstar check-in staff, I landed in Christchurch. Word all over the globe was that NZ was having the best winter in the universe, hence I was pretty stoked to be there. I'd planned on a late trip to take advantage of the sunny weather usually happening around mid-September down south. The weather in Queenstown was so good that my connecting flight the following morning was canceled and I was shipped down to Invercargil then loaded onto a bus. All good though, made it to QT and was met pronto by September coverboy RMB and whisked off for beers and a feed.
I spent a few days in QT, checked out the Remarkables, rode in a banked slalom at Coronet Peak which was a really good time and got introduced to the Dero way of doing life. Good times all-around, megalitres of beer later it was time to get the proverbial out of Dodge. Kiwi hell shredder Shelly Gotlieb played chauffer and on the way to Wanaka we dropped in on the good folks at Cardrona who hooked me up a pass in the blink of an eye, and I was into my first shoot of the trip. Throughout the trip Cardrona looked after me on many occasions with not even the slightest hesitation (such a nice change to have a ski resort work WITH and not against). Anyway, a borrowed shovel and a fence sorted us out and we had the shot. Business concluded, we snuck in a few cheeky runs before checking out the Cardrona Hotel - highly recommended.
The next week was Stylewars NZ, so it was up to the Snow Park for some on-mountain accomodation, jacuzzi and duty-free liquor. The weather was on and off all week, so the comp didn't go strictly to schedule, but was a great time non-the-less with a couple of magic after-hours sessions for the media. Snow Park accommodated us all week, turning the lift on after hours and basically letting us call the shots with whatever we wanted to do. Just another example of an NZ ski resort looking after the people who matter to them.
After the comp, the weather pretty much turned to shit, so my shooting days were wrapped. We had a fun day on the shred at Cardrona again in some galeforce winds and even scored a few cheeky pow slashes up there. The Volcom wagon rolled into town so we moved out to El Rancho Relaxo on 3 acres, kicked soccer balls, smacked golf balls, played bocci and kept ourselves otherwise amused until the rain subsided. That night it was party time, being Will J's birthday, so we hopped on the party waggon and got it rolling. Good times and no vomit in my hair.
One more night of rukus in QT, checked out RJ MC mix his thing up to a packed crowd of 5 very appreciative humans, broke even at the casino and it was time to check out again. This time around the check-in lady kindly left my life savings alone and strangely enough it was smooth sailing for all 3 flights. Stoked on NZ, awesome crew of people in both Wanaka and QT, good mountains and some very tasty beers.
