Day 1
On Monday the 11th of August me, 6 other students and 3 teachers drove 5 hours for our ski trip.
On the day we had to start the day like any normal day, then at 12 some of us would go to the office, and then we would go home to get our gear; The only problem is on the day of our drive our school had an open day, and I had to help; So at 12 I kinda just walked out, the teacher knew what I was doing so it was more or less fine.
When we got back to school we put our stuff in the van and got the rest of our stuff ready. We got in the van and you could tell everyone was excited. Finally they strted the van and we were off. One the way everyone kept to themselfs because most of us had music and headphones except for one, someone in the back was playing their music without headphones and something about their music was just off, they could be classified as "annoying" songs, luckily i had headphones that mostly blocked it out but every time the songs would switch there would be a short period where there would be no sound.
The first half of the ride there wasn't much to see, the only things that were exciting was the Huntly power station and some obese cows. After more and more time passed the mood slowly decreased as everyone started running out of music and things to talk about.
Around 3 1/2 hours later we finally arrived at where we would stop, the place was McDonalds, which was our dinner, yum. I know some people in the van had to go to the bathroom really badly so the stop was a relif to them, and almost everyone had to stretch their legs. We stopped there for around 15 minutes, enought time to eat, use tha bathrooms and have a little walk around; Before we knew it we were back on the road for another 1-1 1/2 hour drive.
This last drive was better as using the wifi at mc donalds I set our drive to the place we would be staying so I had a close to excact time we would get there. When we were almost there I heardthe call everyone wants to hear "turn right" so we turned and then I hear "your destination is on the right", and I let out a big sigh of relief as we could finally properly stretch.
We were lead inside by the owners; Their names were Bruce and Shannon (i think). We got inside and sat down while they gave told us everyting we needed to know about the lodge, The lodge was called Pipers Lodge and was located in Tongararo national park. After the brief we put our stuff in our rooms and got to go down to the common room. In the room they had a pool table, arcade games and a ping pong table. Everone mainly played ping pong becase it was the only game you didn't have to pay for; Everyone was trash at the start but soon we got better. Later we got told we had to go to bed but before that the principal Mr Davis told us to get all our stuff ready for skiing tomorrow. When that was ready they checked we had everything. After that we brushed our teeth and went to bed.
Day 2
On day 2 we all woke up at 5:30am because we had to be ready by 6:00am. At 6:00am everyvody met in the dining room where the teachers cheched we had all our stuff and we lodaded everything into the van. When our stuff was loaded we had breakfast which was bacon, scrambled eggs, baked beans and toast. The breakfast was delicious and we looked out the window to see Mt Ruapehu with a soft glow behind it.
After our admiring was over we got in the van to drive to the base of the mountain. Luckily we coud drive up the mountain as the road wasn't closed nor icy, as we drove up further and further more and more snow started to appear on the sides of the road. We didn't realise it until up at the top when we parked that we were above the clouds, as we looked out there was a blanket covering the land around the mountain. The views from up there were stunning and we were only in the carpark.
We started to walk up the road to get to the slopes and there was some snow we had to walk across, and this may have been the first time some of the people walked or even seen real snow. We walked to the rantal shop and rented our gear, forst helmets, then boots (which were a striggle to put on), and finally our skis. Once you had your gear you walked out onto a little area with some snow where you could get used to the feeling of walking on snow. Once everybody was ready we walked down to wait at the top of the happy valley elevator. When we got to the elevator the janitors were still cleaning the lift area, the whole thing was a bit of on the mountains part as we had lessons in happy vallay at 9:00am and happy valley opened at 9:00am so when it opened we had to rush down.
When we were waiting at the top we had our skis and poles rested up on a handrail to stop people falling down, unfortunatly there were gaps just like a normal handrail, so someone knocked over ther skis which caused a chain reaction for all our skis to fall down, for one student luck wasn't on their side and when their skis fell over one of their poles fall through the crack and onto the rock face. We all laughed cause right before we were laughing at the poles down already on the rock saying "howd those get there",now we know. Right after this happened I took out my phone to take a picture of her pole and while I was taking out my phone, I knocked my pole down, so we both had to shamefull walk up to the rental place to get some new poles.
We finally made it down to happy valley where we would have our lesson where we put on our goggles, got our entry passes and put on our skis. When the instructor arived we got into groups of skill level, 1 being never skied before, and 2 have skied before, I went into group 2 along with my friends who went before. Also in our group was a group of primary kids who looked like they were on their schools ski trip, the only problem is they lived local so they come here often and they were actually good at skiing.
Our first lap Paul (the instructor) told us to do basic pizza turns and meet him at the bottom. We went one by one letting the primary kids go first, Courtney (my friend) went first out of the wesley group, she went straight down and her ski went over a small rock, she fell over but was fine, I went next and safely made it down ACTUALLY DOING TURNS. Next Django (the other one in the group) went straight down towards Courtney, couldn't stop, LAY ON HIS BACK thinking it would slow him down, but it sped him up and he crashed. After they both got up they couldn't walk up to us because ski boots are extremely hard to walk in, so we had to ski down to them, embarrising them in front of a bunch of 6 year olds. We some more excersises and before we knew it the lesson was over.
As soon as the lesson finished me and Courtney tried to ski up to the second magic carpet which would take us to the very top of happy valley. To get to the top we had to walk up a little bit before it flattened out, and to go up in skis you have to do an awkward shimmy perpindicular to the slope, it took us forever to shimmy up but we finally made it, we wanted to do a lap going straight with no turns and see how fast we could go. We got on the magic carpet to begin the slow travel to the top. When we got to the top we grouped up and began our descent. Turns out going straight down happy valley you dont go that fast.
We wanted to do this again so we got in the first magic captet line and slowly moved fowards with the que. Once we got on we slowly made our way up, we made it up and this time we didn't want to shimmy up so we took off our skis and walked. Walking up was dificult as when youre in ski boots your ankles are locked in place. Once we walked up, just before we went through the que we tried to put our skis on, the only problem was when we were walking up snow started packing in the bottom of our boots so when we tried to put our boots on the snow would stop it from going in the binding, we didn't know this so we were just trying and trying but nothing was happening. Finally Mr Davis(the principal) came and pointed out the snow, he bashed it out with his pole and the ski boot clipped in first try.
We did a couple more runs and out of nowhere it started snowing. The van we came up in didn't have chains so we had to get down the mountain before the road became too icy to drive on. Mr Davis said we could do one more run to see if it would get better. We ski down and the snow gets worse. The bad luck doesn't stop there as too many people got on the magic carpet going back up so it stopped, were stuck on a magic carpet, being pattered in the face with little ice particles (which hurt), and on top of that a road becoming a ticking time bomb. Eventually enough people got off that the carpet could start moving again.
Once we got to the top the teachers rounded up all the kids and we walked to the happy valley elevator. The lift took us up to the rentl place where we dropped off our skis, boots, helmets and poles. We then made it to the van and everybody loaded as fast as possible because we all knew the road was getting more icy the longer we waited. They fired up the van and began the drive down to the bottom.
When we got to the bottom we stopped at the Tongararo national park visitor centre to have a look at all the exhibitions and displays. On some displays they had videos playing of the eruption and others there was a wall showing the different sizes of eruptions nationwide. Another display was a 3d map of Tongararo national park and on the sides you would push a button, next to that button was some info about that are for example walking tracks etc; When the button was pressed a small light would light up on the exact location of what was on the info board next to the button. We stayed there for a little bit looking at all the cool things and taking photos, but it was time to leave. We all rounded up at the van and drove back to the lodge.
When we got back to the lodge we all met in the common room where we would hand back the ski pants and anything we rented from them, I only got the ski pants but some others in the group got a ski jacket aswell. After that we just had free time to do whatever we wanted to do. Almost everybody stayed in the common room where we had all the fun things to do. Everybody swarmed round the ping pong table as everthing else you had to pay for, and like nobody had change so ping pong it was.
Some hours passed and it was time for dinner, nobody knew what we were having for dinner and when it came out we were suprised, for dinner we were having a big slab of lasagne with a side of vegetables. Only a few finished their dish as we had alot to eat and for those who didnt finsh they would drop it onto Mr Davis' plae and he would eat the plate till there was nothing left. After everyone had finished the staff took our plates and came out with our desert. For dessert we were having ice cream with apple crumble. Only one person didn't like it but the rest of us gobbled it right up. After desert they let us play in the common room for a little loger until it was time to go to bed. Again the same thing as last time we brushed our teeth, hopped into bed and went to sleep for that day. Right when we were going to sleep my phone starts blaring outwith the national state of emergency thing. It woke Up everyone in our room and all because of dumb covid.
Day 3
Day 3 came around and we were all bummed out about how we had to leave early because of covid, Before the notification everyone was excited because we were gonna do something fun before we made the drive home, so when we found out that wasn't happening we were all a little mad. When we woke up the teachers told us to meet down in the dining room and they would tell us what the new plan was going to be. Right as they were telling us what we were gonna do that day breakfast came out. For breakfast it was the same as yestoday with bacon, scrambled eggs, baked beans and a piece of toast. Before long breakfast was gone off my plate followed by the others plates.
After breakfast we had to grab out bags and put them in the van. Next we were told to do a sweep of our rooms to make sure there was nothing left behind. After the sweep we met back down in the dining room to get a briefing on what the plan was for the day. They told us we would be going to a cave walk in waitomo called "the ruakuri bust trail". We finall said goodbye to the place we called home for the past couple of days and began the drive north.
The drive wasn't as exciting as the way down because we've done the whole thing days ago, only except we were in the dark and we were all tired. The next stop was a gas station not far from the caves. We stopped for about 50-10 minutes to stretch our legs, get some food and mabye a drink. Most people got an energy drink not because they were sleepy but because they were sugary and the gas station had a deal on, the deal was 2 for $3 which was pretty good for a pretty big energy drink. When everybody had purchesed their items we set off for the caves.
We arrived at the parking lot and everybody got out and got a glipse at the trail enterence. We rounded up and took our first steps on the gravel. The walk was fun with massive waterfalls and at one point of the walk there was a huge cathedrial sized room with a fast flowing creek running through the bottom. I took alot of photos and when we got back I looked on google to see if anyone else had the same photos as me, I found a few and pointed tht out to the others. The walk was a cool expierience and it would be fun to do things similiar to it. We got in the vans and set off on the long journey that awaited us.
We only made one other stop on the way back and it was at the best place for quick meals on long drives, McDonalds. We had to eat quickly as the country went back into lockdown at 12:00pm and if we were any later we couldn't eat so time was of the essence. Luckily everybody ordered their food in time and we even had time to eat it at a nearby park. The park was desighned for little kids but we still had fun on it. We just got out before 12, I will say it came close. Again we began the shorter but still long drive.
The next somewhat exciting thing was when we were getting close to auckland. There was a police checkpoint on top of the off ramp. The problem was the off ramp went up; this may not seem like a big issue but the van we were in had troube stopping and starting on hills, so we had to tell one of the people further down the hill and they told us to wait until the cars infront got to the top of the hill so we wouldn't stall and roll down. The cars were almost at the top but the driver still went for it, we stopped next to the top and the car started to make a beeping sound, the car infront of us moved just in time and we madeit to the top of the hill.
At the top there was a policeman just asking why you were entering auckland. The driver explained to him and off we went getting closer and closer to school. We finally got to an area we recognized and before we knew it we made it to school. No one was at school due to lockdown so we couldn't say hi to anyone. We unpacked our stuff from the van and waited for our parents to get here. We got picked up and taken home to see our familly. Everyone was happy to finally be back. When I got home I relaxed and the next day started to write this story. An unfortunate event was when I was around writing the middle of day 2 I wanted to type a captal W, instead of hitting shift W I accadentally hit Ctrl W (which closes the tab) so all of the writing was lost. I got a bit upset by this but soon decided to get over it and re-write, Well here I am now at the end... horay.
This Post Took Around 4 Weeks To Write With 3170 Words,15738 Charecters And 28 Paragraphs. I'm Tired Of Writing
