Skiing part 2

...............Nate and Dan went back up the mountain while I rested my leg. It sure did need it aye?

Then when they got back up we all went down again. And this time I didn't fall over!!! I was quite excited about this. I was finally getting the hang of it.

All the people there were nice and friendly. Well, everyone except that snowboarder who skidded in front of me on purpose and made me fall over. The people who operated the ski lifts and stuff where really cool. One of them had a club which I think was used for patting down snow and someone asked him what it was for and he said that it was to bash anyone who annoyed him!

Anyway we went down the mountains a few more times before I decided I would try my hand at the jumps. So off we went up the T-bar pommel thing, and at the end you skiied off down, and there was the first jump. It was basically just a slanted ramp of packed snow with a half-pipe in the middle. I sped up it and off the other side, and to my great surprise managed to land half-decently and didn't even fall over. I chickened out on the second jump though (which was a big hill with a ramp of snow up the middle) and skiied straight back down to the bottom. I did this again before I got up courage to jump the second.

And much to my surprise, I didn't crash on that one either, and managed to land on the other side of the hill, whizzing down at top speed onto what was a mini jump on the same hill. I was going to fast though, and swerved round the last jump.

The next time I did all three, and it was awesome. Eventually we decided though that we'd have one last turn, then head to the bottom. My one would have been fine except this snowboarder went at the same time of me so we both were kind of racing each other. My first jump was fine but the second I took to fast so got way to high and crashed but somehow or other I managed to still be sliding down on my skiis, so I stood up and by then the third jump loomed with no way to slow down so I got some serious air, but my landing wasn't so great so I crashed and stayed down. =( Skills

The others came along and we skiied all the way down the mountain. It was swell. Then at the bottom the lifts were still going so we decided there was just enough time for one more time down. So up we went again, and I had to say it was a great way to end the day. None of us crashed (or maybe only Beka did) and our muscles weren't on fire, and it was just us and the slope and the great mountain air. And I skidded to a halt perfectly at the end to which is much more than can be said of the time when me and Nate were "racing" ( I couldn't stop myself and crashed straight into this guy; I was so embarrassed but luckily he was one of those nice fella's and gave me a hand up.

So after we got all our gear we headed back to the carpark, and the people we were with

launched into a massive snowball fight while I took some more pics with my camera. (this one was in the morning actually but yeah.) Beka had forgotten to bring spare socks which was kind of stupid so she had to wear bare feet and she's putting her hood up cos someone just creamed her with a snowball. Nice one.

Then we finally set off at last, and I took a final picture of Mt Ruapahu. Man it was a great day. My legs were sore, I was tired as, and the boys had sunburn, but so? We had a mean day!

Jordan