New Zealand Instructor Course – Week 8 Diary

Week 8 was exam week, Monday was spent at Mt Hutt ski area with the groups personal skiing being assessed and improved, also the first stage of the progression was run through by the examiners.

Tuesday, unfortunately, was a closed day at Mt Hutt due to high winds. So instead of skiing the day was spent indoors in Methven, going through the rest of the progression and other such things, at the end of the day we found out that instead of having our teaching exam on Thursday, it would be on Wednesday, needless to say we were all very scared.

Wednesday morning was taken up with the teaching exams, and, after we all smashed the exam we went back to the pub and got drunk very, very early. For some reason I was convinced into repeating my bear-hunting based exam lesson in the pub needless to say it was borderline humiliation. The final exam morning was spent waiting to see if ‘Mt Shutt’ was going to open or not, then when it finally did we all trouped up the mountain in gale force winds and stunned the examiners with our personal skiing. The group made its nervous way into Forest Lodge where the prize giving was taking place, when we left we were ski instructors!

What followed was a horrible combination of heavy drinking and for me, the loss of shoes and a two hour drunken, bare-foot stumble around Methven in search of where I was staying. The following weekend was also spent mostly intoxicated.

To read Week 9, it is amazing, CLICK HERE