Mountains upon Mountains

When I am not living in Diamond Harbour (my semi-permanent home right now) or evacuating aftershocks and earthquake rubble, I spend my days amongst the mountains of the Southern Alps at Mt. Cheeseman Skifield. Here, I’ve gotten to experience another New Zealand sub-culture. Ski fields are a bit of a New Zealand anomaly, run and owned by their few hundred members, providing a much more (I think) pleasurable skiing experience with no chairlift lines, fewer crowds, and a family-like feel between its members or “clubbies.” They are small ski areas, but have all the terrain you can ask for. Knowing the right people and having the right connections, I worked my way into the Cheeseman niche, dappling in the life of a ski-bum and, again, pulling the nanny card and working as part-time staff as “ski-nanny” (A word of advice: you can go anywhere in the world and DO anything you want to do if you’re willing to watch people’s kids).
My story here unfortunately starts as painful as it was exhilarating. Having learned to snowboard at upstate NY Greek Peak ski area for a few seasons during high school, I decided to take it up again. A month in, I discovered that re-learning to snowboard requires certain conditions which were lacking at Mt. Cheeseman Skifield. Firstly, it requires a certain amount of snow coverage. NZ winters are a hit or miss, and I spent most of the season learning on a very thin base of ICY, HARD-PACKED snow which made Greek Peak snow feel like the Rockies. Days of boarding (and falling, er a lot of falling), left my body looking so beaten and battered I chose to wear clothes into the swimming pool when I had to take my girls to swimming lessons so as not to broadcast myself to be what appeared an abuse victim. What beat and battered me the most, however, was the t-bar. Due to the smallness of the field, Mt. Cheeseman does not have chairlifts, but rather it has archaic-looking torture devices that are upside down metal t’s that you must slip through your legs, and if all goes well, pull you up a mountain.
Not so bad on skiis (note skier happily riding t-bar), but on a snowboard you must ride up the mountain sideways while twisting your body forward to see where you’re going, all while steering straight using your toe and heal-side edges, constantly stopping and gaining speed on different terrains. The first time I rode the t-bar, I ended up hanging from my arms with my legs dragging behind me, holding on to dear life until I reached terrain that was not so steep I would form a human avalanche rolling down. Week after week, my snowboarding improved, but my t-bar riding did not. I would fall off or get dragged in contorted positions so much that small ski-bunny 4-yr olds would ask me if I was okay.
At the beginning of the season, I was so thrilled to have found awesome neon purple snowpants for $3, but overtime discovered it is only awesome to wear neon colors on a ski field if you are awesomely good. Before my reputation had grown to full-blown, purple snowpants girl (mostly seen being dragged up mountain by one leg) I acquired a friend’s black pair. My confidence soared and my t-bar riding and snowboarding improved tremendously. Despite my sudden surge in competence, the season had left me with bruises covering entire body parts, a dislocated wrist, and the annoyance that snowboarding was only fun on ever-so-often fresh powder days. With the support of many friends of family, I decided to cross over to the other side. I learned to ski. Shivering in my boots that I was about to embarrass and hurt myself again for the next long few weeks, I set out with a friend one afternoon for a few hours, and miraculously ended my first session beaming. I learned to parallel turn my first day and was an intermediate skier by day 2. I was so happy the snow gods had granted me this new-found ability and I did not fall even once off the t-bar.
My job as a ski-nanny was an amazing experience that happened to fall into my journey, and will be one that I won’t forget. As a ski-nanny, I lived up on the mountain, skied and got lessons from Swiss instructors in the mornings, spent the afternoons in the lodge reading books to toddlers, skied a little more, and then played games with the kids at night. I became known as “Nanny McPhoebe,” and staff joked that I had become the most popular staff person at Cheeseman, as I was willing to take 30 children out of the lodge at night and play games with them in another building, giving both parents and staff some peace and quiet. Being a camp counselor never came in so handy as I played hours of ‘fishy, fishy, cross my ocean’ or whatever other games I had up my sleeve to cater to the wide range of ages 4-12 or so (Thanks mom, many Earth Arts games came in handy). The perks I received just for watching people’s kids were amazing, and I got to stay in honeymoon suites with glass doors opening up to the most holy of holy sunrises in the mornings.
I didn’t get paid with money, but I got paid with free food, spectacular mountain-view accommodation, free access to the ski-field, free daily lessons with some of the best Swiss ski instructors in the world, and the pure satisfaction of waking up, going to sleep and breathing every breath in-between amongst a pristine, alpine environment that people pay thousands for to stay at for a week. Just goes to show, that sometimes working hard and receiving payment in amazing opportunities and experiences is just as good if not better than a paycheck each week. Of course I would not be here if it wasn’t for money, but there is very little exchange of money currently in my life here, and in turn, I am living the fullest, most exciting days that I ever have. Looking after people’s kids wherever I go (and being very good at it), being able to help with anything, and making friends, has brought me all over this country, never without a pair of skiis or a snowboard to borrow, a car to drive, or a pair of black snowpants when you really need them.
The snow season is now over, spring has sprung, and New Zealand is once again drop-dead gorgeous. Trees are in blossom and lambs are EVERYWHERE throughout the countryside (I am entertained on long bus rides watching all the lambs frolic and play on rolling green fields). I’m continuing to work and live with the same family, and still call my home Diamond Harbour. But for now, I’m on a two-week solo holiday to the bottom of the South Island to see some of the most beautiful, un-touched sites in the world. I’m off to Fiordland-a place cut so sharply by glaciers, that it looks like nowhere else on earth. I am most looking forward to what Rudyard Kipling deemed the 8th Wonder of the World, Milford Sound. Anyways, I’m back to the backpacker lifestyle, eating baked beans out of a can, soaking in every minute of the 2 ½ months of New Zealand that I have left. Still so grateful to be here, and never weary of a new adventure in one of the most beautiful countries on the earth.