Queenstown is Snowless / I'm coming home

Queenstown, a beautiful fun place to visit, just a so so place to live. It's especially true if you have been waiting for three months for snow and it doesn't appear. Winterfest the big kick off festival for the winter season starts Thursday and there is no snow, on mountain events are going to have to be canceled. And snow still may be a few weeks out. The resorts have pushed back opening dates and have put their staff on hold, causing there to be a fair amount of tension hanging over the town and businesses. Which includes my two jobs more so at Quiksilver where the business is highly affected by tourists, Fat Badgers my new pizza place is doing good business but is still betting heavily that the people will come with Winterfest and well...snow.

But doesn't matter for me anymore I'm coming home early, these mountains and the snow aren't cutting it for me. I'll get a few days on the mountain when the snow does eventually show up. But my expectations for the mountains here were a bit too grand. I fully blame That's It That's All, though I guess I should have tempered my expectations a little seeing how all the NZ footage is heli. I'll catch a winter somewhere bigger and more powdery sometime in the near future.

I want summer and I want to be back in SoCal for awhile. I miss it. So yah that's what I'm doing I'll be home in 7 weeks, the first week in August. I'll see you all then!

The Remarkables from town w/ snow, 4 weeks ago

The Remarkables from town w/o snow, how it looks now

New pizza place. Stoned and baked, mmm my favorite, what a perfect match.

I never knew pizza skills would take me so far, god that looks good

Queenstown, Employment Opportunities

So I've been in Queenstown for the last couple weeks. The road trip was good, pretty quick but a fun way to see everywhere on the way down. Went to Milford Sound for a couple days and did some kayaking, it was an incredible place, huge and powerful scenery. Now I am just hanging out and playing disc golf. Made a few American friends and have met some people I've known while living in Cairns last year. It's a small town and won't take long to be come a local around here.

I've found work in town that starts in three weeks, which is when work will be coming available most places as the Winter season rolls in. The job is at the Quiksilver retail store actually, good ol' Quik. Ideally I'd like an on mountain job but they pretty tough to come by in Queenstown. So now I have two jobs lined up, Lift operator on the North Island in a small mountain town on a weather beaten resort or Quik retail in beautiful fun Queenstown buy a season pass. Not sure what I want to do...

Cruisin in the RV

The Remarkables from the park in town

Disc golf right on the lake in the middle of town

Milford Sound, that little boat is three stories tall

Kayaking in the Sound

Taupo, Job Interview, Road Trip

I've left Auckland, took the bus a few hours south to Taupo. I needed to be in Taupo for a job interview for a lift operator position at Mt. Ruapehu, http://www.mtruapehu.com/. The interview went incredibly well and they told me that I had the job. I am going to be a Lift Operator, a job that I've always wanted to have. The mountain itself is one of the world's most active volcanoes, it last erupted in 2007. Stoked to have work all sorted out, and now I can enjoy New Zealand for a month and a half while we wait for snow.

I'd been looking to head south and want to get myself to Queenstown. Checked some message boards and found a couple of English backpackers who are taking a three day road trip in a big camper-van to Queenstown and are looking some one to share petrol (gas) costs with. I hit them up and they just got back to me and said I was welcome to come along, so yah they are picking me up on Wednesday and we are hitting the road. Wellington, ferry from island to island, Christchurch and over to Queenstown.

2007 eruption

road trippin

New Country. More Blog Posts

Haven't spent much time working on this over the last few months, but I am going to return to it with a fresh attitude. Blogging. Sounds gay. Whatever, here is what's up...

Dustin is back home. My year in Australia is over. Trevor is still in Oz and I am now in New Zealand.

Hanging out around the Auckland area for a bit. I have a job interview in Taupo on the 16th for a lift operator position on one of the ski fields here, Mt Ruapehu. If all goes acording to plan than I'll be reporting for work in June when the snow starts to fall.

The people I am staying with have a scooter, I've been riding it everyday

North Shore

Downtown Auckland