The End of Queenstown!

Hello!

By the end of the season, mother nature had successfully terrified us into thinking the mountains would close a month early, but just when we thought it was all over, she finally graced us with a powder day! Luckily I had this day off, so I threw on my gear and headed up on the first bus. 


I have never seen so many happy faces on the mountain, people were having a great time, chatting on the chairlifts about calling in sick for work to experience the powder. The whole of Queenstown had come together to enjoy the remains of a season that we thought was already over! ( FYI, powder is just a lot of fluffy snow, so when you fall it literally doesn't hurt at all!! ideal for learners).

Me and Nick had a final snowboarding day together the week before the mountains closed for the season, we had the best day, treating ourselves to lunch and I even attempted to do a box jump. Spending my final day up there with Nick was my favourite day of the season, I was showing off linking my turns and I was even going quite fast. I can't wait to do a snowboarding holiday in Europe where the snow is powder most of the time.

My mum and Sean came to visit during our final weeks of Queenstown. We had so much fun showing them around, we played Frisbee golf, walked up to Bobs Peak took them to Arrowtown. We even did the impossibly hard Pog Mahones quiz and came second!! (my mum is a bit of a genius). We also had a fake Christmas which was fantastic, it was very unexpected and slightly odd having Christmas in October but was super fun!! 

Me and Nick finally decided to climb Ben Lomond before leaving Queenstown, the mountain is 1748 meters and around 6-8 hours round trip to the summit. We climbed it with our friends who were over from the UK (who actually got engaged at the top!!!) and we did not expect it to be so hard!! I was wearing my $7 warehouse trainers and just a hoodie, and the further we got to the top, the lower the temperature fell. Then there was snow! We were not prepared at all, we didn't have hats or gloves or anything and the final 200 meters was literally vertical, we were climbing up the mountain on all fours! My hands have never been so cold. It was worth it though, Queenstown looked tiny from up there, you could see mountains for miles and miles  and right over Lake Wakatipu. It was quite breathtaking really, I'm so glad we made it up to the top! We didn't stay up there for long though, like I say we were not very prepared and FREEZING!! The way down was a bit like snowboarding, the snow had mostly melted into slush and I got most of the way down sliding on my bum. I don't think I have ever been so dirty!! We went home when it was all over for a hot nice shower and then went out for a Fergburger, we had planned to go out that night to celebrate the engagement but we were all a bit too sleepy.  

The season officially ended with the NZski ball, which was fantastic! It was hard to recognize everyone without there ski goggles and hats. Everyone had made a real effort to dress up and it finally hit us that we were going our separate ways. Was a very fun and emotional night! Lots of laughs and dancing and some very drunk Head of Departments!  

Doing a ski season in Queenstown was an amazing experience! Although I wouldn't do it there again as it is unreliable for snow, we did have a fantastic time. I learnt how to snowboard and Nick has learnt how to do all sorts of crazy tricks! It was really sad to leave, especially when we had to leave our beautiful little home! We will definitely be going on a lot of snowboarding holidays in the future. 

Sarah

xxx