New Zealand Ski Instructor Course Diary: Entry #1

Zoe writes about the first week on our New Zealand Instructor course...

Kia ora from the 2011 New Zealand Ski Instructor course!

We all arrived in dribs and drabs throughout the week, with the last 2 trainees arriving on the Saturday. Our group is split 50/50 Brits and Aussies.  We all got together over “fush n chups” to get to know each other and our “fully suck” Trainer Jase.

Sunday was a general “suiting and booting” day down at Darfield, and meeting the amazing staff at Gnomes Ski Shop.

Monday started out full of excitement and anticipation for all of us, which nearly ended in a crashing climax for 2 of us with in minutes of hitting the slopes.


The next couple of days were spent exploring and getting to grips with Porters Terrain (and staff ho ho ho). We all ventured onto some of the steepest terrain of the Southern Hemisphere, most of us managed to get down skiing upright, however I managed to go down 'Bluff Face' face first.


Most of the week was taken up doing light training to get us up on all the course outline and techniques, with a fair bit of free skiing towards the end of the week. We were also introduced to the fine art of “Ski Tuning”.

Throughout the week Jase video'd our ski sessions, analysed them and then we set our Goals for the course.

Over the course of the week, we were rudely awoken several times to the Tremors……the biggest one being 5.1, nothing beats having a tremor as an alarm clock!!!!

On the Saturday, some of us still pretty hung-over, were taken, by our Mighty Leader, into Christchurch to watch Canterbury versus Southland Rugby game. It was an amazing atmosphere as we were right in the middle of the Southland Supporters (the opposition, who won in the dying seconds of the game).

The week finished with a good session at the local “pub”!