At home

So after about 4 month living in Queenstown I finally take the time to post some photos about my house.
I live in Fern hill its just on the hill next to Queenstown, about 30min walk to town. I live with 4 kiwis all from north island and very cool. i really love living here.
So there is some photos to see where I live:

 My room, the balcony and the pool, and the living room with the pool table that we can transform in a ping pong table

 The kitchen, the garage, the other side of the living room and the bbq area

 The view from the sky above my house

 View from the living room

 and some Sunset from my balcony:

Winter is over …. :(

As you know when i moved in Queenstown I was planning on working on a ski field, but I find out that it was much more difficult than expected to get a job there, you don’t have to have a good CV you just need heaps of chance or whatever I apparently don’t have … as most of the staff of the Queenstown ski field was really bad at their job, some of them never seen the snow before but still get a job on the slopes … and I didn’t …. Anyway, I still enjoyed my winter here!!

The ski resort are not a small town up the mountain like in France, or just next to the highway like in Quebec… it’s usually just one building with ticket, rental, and restaurant, and one big car park, accessible only by a dirt road 15 to 30min drive from a real road and 30 to 60min from the nearest town

 Like Cardronna :

 Around Queenstown there is two resort managed badly by the same company, cornet peak and the remarkable. Cornet peak is a bit lower and have only groomed slopes. The slopes are not too bad for New Zealand. The remarkable have only few and very easy and boring groomed slop, but have a terrain park that is ok and a lot of back country possibility. You can see some photos from the only very good powder day of the winter just under I think.
And around Wanaka(1h away from Queenstown) there is treble cone, Cardronna, and Snowpark.
Treble cone is a bit too far so I couldn’t go there but apparently is the best place for nice slopes and awesome backcountry.
Snowpark and Cardronna are halfway between Queenstown and Wanaka and I went few time in both of them, Cardronna is quite big, a lot of slopes an awesome terrain park with big jumps and a good halfpipe.

a bit of Cardronna very early, waiting for the lift to open

Snowpark is really small, only one lift and it’s basically just a big terrain park with the triple line (some hard rails and few huge jump) an awesome halfpipe and line with heaps of rails and some small jumps.

the bigest jump on the triple line at snowpark :

me on the side of the kicker and the view from the top of the kicker during the set up of the course for burton high five. the jump is about 75ft (23m) that mean there is about 23 meter between the bottom of the kicker (where I am on the top pic) and the start of the landing after the flat where all people stand on the bottom pic) I really loved this jump but didn't get to take it as much as I wanted as it was close for the competition most of the time.


The best part of the winter was definitively the volunteering work I did for some freestyle event. Two times during the winter I get to spend a week up to Snowpark. As Snowpark is one of the only resorts that have some accommodation available up the hill we were staying up there the whole week.

The first event was the Burton high-five, a snowboard competition with the best rider in the world. We were about 15-20 people volunteering and all get along very well during the whole week. We had to get up very early to start setting up the course at 6AM. When the course is ready we had to do a bit of marshalling (checking the landing of the jump and close the course if there is something in the landing)  and a lot of time off for riding, and that was very relax. Sometimes the evening there was night skiing so we enjoyed more riding. And to finish the event there was a big party in town in Wanaka that was awesome.

6am on the lift, the course set up, one rider on the last jump and a night skiing pic :)

the halfpipe with the sun at the right place !!

 Few weeks later there was the Freeskii open, which was same kind of event as the burton highfive but for skiers. We were about 8 but this time we know most people from burton high five. And the snow wasn't that good so we replaced the night skiing by spa and beer …. And thanks to Jamie, drinking games tequila and gin and bailey...

It was a bit more difficult to wake up and set up the course with hangover, but so much fun. And again the closing party in Wanaka was awesome.

 These two events were really amazing, a huge terrain parks some free beer, awesome place and most important, some amazing people…. That made my winter and makes me want even more to work on the slope someday.

 This winter around Queenstown and Wanaka wasn't really good we didn't get much snow, September was better and unfortunately everything closed around October 7th. And after that there where a lot of snow falls up the mountains that was a bit frustrating, I think there is more snow now than during the whole winter …

me from the remarkables looking over Queenstown

the only pics I could get from me on jumps, at remarkables on the 45" (15m) jump .... 

unfortunately not on the right time ....

on the White Gold rush!!!

This year the winter in New Zealand is really bad, almost no snow …. Like snowparkNZ here:

 Now that spring is coming we got few day of snow for finally getting some good condition, And I was lucky enough to have 2 days off at the end of these snowfalls, the Tuesday was snowing very hard and very windy but Remarks was open, so no hesitation, I went up there for the full day and it was amazing with all the fresh snow, even if it was bloody cold and couldn’t see anything. I didn’t take any photos because of the visibility.

 But the next day, it was really sunny. So at 8:45AM, with a friend, we were in front of the lift waiting for it to open around 9AM. It was really like a gold rush there were a lot of people waiting like us to be the first one to make the tracks on the perfect snow. As soon as we reach the top of the lift everyone was going as fast as possible to make the first tracks.
I was too obsessed about skiing so I didn't took any pictures for the first 2 runs

you can see on top a line of rider rushing to make the first tracks on the side

 After few runs there were already few track everywhere, so we start hiking to reach some better spot, and a lot of people do the same, hurry to get on top of the hill to enjoy all this white gold.

a small hike ...

... to make make these first tracks :)

 As the day goes we get many runs always awesome with heaps of fresh snow and just few tracks.
You can see progressively the tracks spreading all across the ski area along the day…
my friend had to left a bit earlier to go to work but i stayed until the very end.

on top of the hill after a long hike, now an awesome run in front of me!! 

nice view over the ski area!!

 At the end of the day, most of the good slops were smashed, the only place where you have to hike a lot were still fresh without too many tracks.

that was by far the best day of the winter, end up veeery tired, but would have loved to stay longer, but unfortunately it close at 4PM so i had to go home :(

Working again, but in good conditions this time!!

After quitting my crappy job in lonestar, It didn’t take me too long to find another job!!

So now I’m working in the Mercure hotel in Queenstown since about 3 weeks now. It is still as kitchen hand but the work condition is much better. Everyone is really nice; they don’t give me too much work and no pressure. The shift I’m doing match very well with what I want, it leaves me a lot of time for skiing, so that’s pretty good. Just a bit more hours would be better.

So I’m really glad I quit this shitty job in lonestar about a month ago, now I know that they were really bad people and now I have a really nice job!!

still in queenstown still beautifull

just a very short post to show you a small video that i found on the net. It's made in Queenstown during the last few weeks, really nice :

 

Watching sunrise over Queenstown ....

Just few pics of a random sunrise over Queenstown what a good surprise in the morning on my way up the mountains for a good day of skiing

this one is not from me but took from somewhere very close to my house

pics are from me in Queenstown and one from a friend in wanaka

this one is took by a friend around Wanaka

At work being exploited …

When I arrived in queenstown I directly look for a job, but I realize that it wasn’t easy to find something as there is thousands of people looking for jobs and not a lot of people hiring…
After few weeks looking for a job very hard, I finally found something …. But  The way it started was weird already....
I just come by the restaurant and ask if they needed someone and get lucky to be able to talk to the head chef directly, that just ask me few question then ask me to come the next day for a try for kitchen hand (cleaning dishes). He didn’t even knew my nem didn’t saw my CV, nothing. I did the try pretty well, there was a lot of work and have to be quick, but I did it pretty well 3 day after he called me to tell me that I got the job.

 I had to come to the restaurant to sign my contract at the beginning of the afternoon and that I started to work in the evening. Went I went to sign my contract only the big boss was here, he didn’t even know who I am and that I go the job, but as I told him I get called for the job he did my contract and sort everything out…

as it was my first day I was supposed to get a training before working, but when I arrived they just ask me to start working without showing me anything, and then the other kitchen hand arrived and we did all the job together and he show me how he did everything, it wasn’t too busy, but it was already a lot of job for 2 people … I find out later that it was what they called a training.

 The next days I realized that I had to do exactly the same job, but all alone…. We were two for the first day only as “training” I did as good as I can and manage to finish not too late as it wasn’t very busy and I got helped a bit by one other guy at the end.

But the following week it was the school holidays and the restaurant get very busy. I had to work 5 days in a row working at least 10h no-stop with only 15 to 30min of unpaid break for diner ….. And they always put a lot of pressure to make me work faster. The Friday and Saturday I worked 12 and 13h, and finish around 3:30 and 4:30 AM…. The day after the boss was just being upset that I finish late don’t even say anything nice …. Just always saying I should be faster …. And when I ask how I can be faster he didn’t even answer me ….On the other side some waiter thanks me because I was really fast ….

I continue working few days trying my best to be faster, but honestly it wasn't possible to go faster, and the boss keep putting more pressure on me. It was clearly a hard job for two people and they just wanted me to do it alone and they don’t even try to help me or and wasn't nice with me at all, they were just treating me like shit …. So I decided to quit !!

And even for quitting that was a joke …. I went there and tell my boss that I wanted to quit, he didn’t say anything, just “ go talk to the big boss” nothing else …. When I say it to the big boss he just tell “ I’m busy now “ I just ask him a very short question he didn’t even try to answer me just say like “read your contract”(after the 3rd time i asked)  so I left and just write a letter and put it on his desk …

That’s pretty much the story of my first job in queenstown, during 2 weeks I had no life at all, but now I’m all good, veeeery glad I quit. While I was working I was sometime feelling like I was just part of a psychological experience just to see how though I was. I looked for hidded camera because I was really looking like a big joke sometimes.