Winiata’s Blog

On Sunday, the 13th of July my mum, my cousin Bronte and I packed a bag each and left home for Mt Ruapehu. We drove for two hours to Pukawa, to the chalet where we were going to stay for the next two nights. Pukawa is near Turangi, and my dad helped to build the house that we stay in  over there.

When we finally arrived, we went inside and were greeted by some of my dad’s uncles and aunties. Mum started talking to them, while my cousin Bronte and I sat on the couch and ate biscuits. Then we saw another car arrive outside. We rushed outside to see who it was, and it was my cousins Maurice and Clint from Wairoa. They had finally arrived, and they were spending the next two days with us.

While they were talking, my cousins and I caught up. I was buzzing with joy because I love being around all my cousins. When they come, mum usually gives us money, and we go places and have fun. The last time they came, my older cousin Eden had a baby, and a lot of people came to stay our house, which was really fun. 

After mum had finished talking, we went upstairs, unpacked all our gear, and started cooking dinner. I was really excited about being with my cousins because I thought one of two things would happen. Either mum would give us lots of money, or we would go somewhere fun and exciting. We chatted for a long time that night and discussed what we were going to do the next day.

We were going up to Whakapapa to go skiing, but we couldn’t decide if we should do skiing or snowboarding. I am the only one of all my cousins who has ever skied before. We couldn’t make up our minds, and we went to sleep that night still uncertain about what we were going to choose.

The next day I was awoken by a light right above my eyes. It was 6 o’clock in the morning, and we were having a very early breakfast. We were in a rush, even though it was really early. We got changed quickly and loaded the car with our supplies and hit the road.

We travelled for about half an hour, then we pulled in at a rental shop. We all got out and raced inside. I looked around for the coolest gear, and I found lots of snow gear, but I couldn’t get it because that wasn’t what we had come for. 

I had all my own gear, but my three cousins had no proper clothing because it was their first time on the mountain. One of the staff showed them where to find the right gear, and then they tried it all on for size. After the fittings, we went to the counter where we were going to hire them. While we were there, mum also bought us the lift passes that we would need on the ski slopes, so we wouldn’t have to worry about lining up again when we got up there. By now we were 30 minutes behind schedule!

We drove the rest of the way and we parked at the top of the Bruce road. There was snow on the ground alongside where the cars were parked. We leapt out of the car and began playing with it right away. Mum told us to hurry up because we still had to get snowboards and boots at the rental place in Happy Valley.

By the time we got everything, it was 9am. We had a snowboarding lesson at 9.30am, so we had to whip through rentals. I was really excited when I was given my gear because I felt like a professional using a snowboard. After we had geared up we were sent to the flag, where a group of other snowboarders were waiting. After joining the group we were given an instructor, and then we were off. In the lesson we were taught how to turn and all the basic moves. It was really fun because I was excelling and getting better and faster, while my cousins were falling behind. 

After 1 1/2 hours of being taught, we just wanted to get down those slopes and try out what we had just learned. I was powering down the hill, and I had to wait for ages down the bottom while my cousins came down. We spent the whole morning having races, trying some new tricks, or just sliding down on our butts just for the fun of it. 

After lunch we met our other 3 cousins and an uncle from Pirongia who were also skiing. They were staying the night with us at Pukawa, so we were even happier to see them. We spent part of the afternoon with them, then we tried going down really fast, and going backwards on the boards. 

By the end of the day, my cousins and I were soaking wet, and really tired. We couldn’t wait to get changed. On the way to our accommodation, we grabbed snowballs and bombed my uncle’s car. That was a great laugh, my uncle didn’t look too happy, but we didn’t care.

When we arrived home, we stripped out of our snow gear and sat in front of the heater. We talked about our day and if we were going to snowboard the next day. My calf muscles were aching, so we decided to go to the hot pools. We packed all our togs in the car and left.

When we arrived at the hot pools, we looked into a nearby river for some fish, but it was too dark to see. So we went in and got changed into our togs. We could see the steam rising up, even though we were outside. I tested the pool water by sticking my foot in first, and the water was so hot that it felt the opposite, it felt freezing cold. The temperature was so diverse that at first my body couldn’t tell whether the water was hot or cold! 

After a while, I slowly lowered myself into the pool, and the pain seemed to go away. It was really relieving, and I wanted to stay in it for a long time. We stayed in the pools until we got tired, then we got dressed and drove back to the chalet. 

The next morning, we knew what we were supposed to do, so we got straight to it. After packing the car, we zoomed off towards the mountain. We had decided to snowboard, but we also wanted to toboggan, so we thought about doing half a day of each, but we couldn’t make up our minds.

After rentals, we went down to happy valley, and we snowboarded for a while, until I started to think about going higher. I asked my cousins, but they wanted to stay in happy valley. After going down a few times, I just gave up on my cousins and went up to the rock garden on my own. It was the next trail up, and it was steeper and more challenging than happy valley. 

As I rode up on the chairlift I studied the trail, so I knew where I would be going. The Rock Garden was awesome for the first time down because of all the steep parts, so it wasn’t boring. When I got to the bottom, I was reunited with my cousins, who had finally come up.

We spent most of the day in the rock garden, learning some new tricks and getting better at snowboarding. We went over bumps, and sometimes we tried doing some jumps. One time, we even went off the track and onto another track which lead straight down to the car park. 

After lunch I wanted to go tobogganing, so we got the gear, but we had to walk all the way down to the car park, then walk all the way back up, then we had to walk even further up to get to the tobogganing area. 

The place was just a hill with a marked out area where people were sliding down. Once we saw how fast they were going, we raced up that hill, got on our sledges, and zoomed down the hill. One time, my cousins and I rammed in to the side, and crashed! We were laughing our heads off, because we had both set each other up to crash. 

We went down that hill several times, until we finally got tired, and slid back down to happy valley. We spent the rest of the afternoon snowboarding again. I did my best jump that day, and landed without falling over. I was so rapt that I kept falling over the rest of the way.  

That was the best day of my holidays, and I sure made the most of it. A great day spent up on the mountain left us so tired that we couldn’t even be bothered putting our clothes away, we just dropped them in the hallway, which didn’t please mum very much. 

That night was long and relaxing, but we were too tired to go to the hot pools, so we just rested on the couch and watched TV. As we ate dinner we thought about all the wonderful things we had done that day. I was really keen to do it again, but I knew we weren’t going up again tomorrow.

The next day we slept in so long that my uncle had been fishing for over an hour before we actually got up! But apart from the moaning the morning was pretty good….NOT! We had to clean the whole place up, which meant sorting clothes and packing our bags, vacuuming the house, sweeping the deck, doing the dishes and loading the car. We just couldn’t be bothered, but we still did it.

As we got into the car, I was really sad because I knew I wouldn’t be seeing my cousins again for a long time, and we had had such great fun together. But we had to say our goodbyes and leave. My cousins were going back to Wairoa and I was going back to Te Awamutu with mum. I was hoping that I would be able to do this again this season, and I can’t wait for the day when I will be able to go all the way to the top of Mt Ruapehu on my snowboard.