Ski Chatel!

A good intro... or have a look when you've read a bit more...

(I'm the one with the green jacket and the light blue trousers, skiing)
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Kia ora all.

...Read the following in a dramatic, deep, American accent...

This Spring........Furry Marmotte Productions proudly invites you.... to the premier of acclaimed producer Richy Lawton's latest epic. "Kiwi's Ski Portes du Soleil" follows the trials, tribulations, spills and thrills of 14 New Zealander's in the French/Swiss Alps. Backed by fresh and funky house especially mixed by the Cut-Up-Boys, this 8 minute masterpiece is certain to sweep many of this year's Oscars.

Forget the red carpet, fancy frocks and champagne. On this cold Spring evening, grab yourself a comfy chair, a warm duvet and a mug of hot chocolate. Crank up the volume and roll on up to:
http://vids.myspace.com/index.cfm?fuseaction=vids.individual&videoid=2016419124

Peace.
Rich.
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Needless to say the ski trip to France was fantastic. We had beautiful weather up until the last day when it snowed and gave the keen beans some fresh snow to play in (I tried, but it was too cold). For the rest of us on that last day it was lovely to see what the village looked like when it snowed - magical :-)

Anyway, I'm getting ahead of myself. We flew into Geneva (my first mainland European destination!) and the people from our accommodation in Chatel had organised to have us picked up from the airport and drove us to France. I have to say that on the way I was admiring the rapids in a river that ran beside the road - a future trip perhaps....?

On the trip we got stopped by the local gendarmerie, just a routine stop I think but our Australian driver didn't have his driver's licence or the documentation for the van that was apparently supposed to be there! They said he had to call in later with the correct things and sent us on our way.

We dropped our bags at the chalet and went to explore the town of Chatel (location) where we were staying. (Occasionally throughout the week we all made the mistake of mixing up Chatel and chalet - saying the wrong one, understandable really!)

We went out for dinner the first night and unfortunately something about the meal didn't agree with me and I spent almost the entire night throwing up. I abandoned my bunk-top bed and went upstairs to sleep on the couch so as to not keep disturbing my room-mates. Very unpleasant, and for the next few days I didn't really feel like eating much and therefore had very little energy. Which is not the best for a ski trip. Still, I made it up the hill every day and by the time I was better had figured out where I wanted to explore.

My first day back to full strength was HUGE. A left the chalet at 8.15am and didn't get back till 6.30pm. And it only takes about half an hour to actually get on the slopes! It was a great day. We headed over to Avoriaz, which is actually a town up in the mountains surrounded by ski lifts and a couple of terrain parks. To get to where we wanted to go we skiied through the middle of town! A foreign concept to Kiwi snow bunnies.

The area that we stayed in was part of the Porte du Soleil, an area across the French-Swiss border consisting of 14 different ski resorts. So we could (if we wanted) ski over into Switzerland and back into France! The closest I got was lunch on the border up on a ridge-top. The snow didn't look as good down the Swiss side!

Anyway, headed up the other side of Avoriaz on an express chairlift and skiied a really fun black run a few times. (On the video, you can see Nick skiing down the side of the black run - its a really long clip that the focus keeps coming back to. I took most of the footage, apart from the very end bit which is Richy's camera work.) Once we'd done that it was time to head back because it took about an hour to get back to where we could get the bus back to Chatel - a few lifts up and skiing down...

So as for the skiing, the week was fantastic, but what really made the trip (especially for me in my weak state the first couple days) was the après-ski - soaking in the hot tub at the chalet with a drink, great cheap food out and at 'home', and good company!

The last day we weren't flying out of Geneva till quite late so we ate pancakes at one cafe and sat around for a while, did some souvenir shopping, drank coffee, ate some more at a different restaurant, and took some lovely photos of snow-covered Chatel. It felt like a very long day, especially since the queue to get back into England was terminally slow!! Very very frustrating.

The trip over all was magic.

For another side to the story and some pics have a look at Nick and Tash's blog (link to the right). They're also a bit more up-to-date than me with what we've been up to - and I've been doing mostly the same thing as them lately!

And I'll post some pictures soon - although the video is pretty good for that...