On Wednesday 25th of June our van with eight international and four Kiwi students from Logan Park set off to Wanaka on an organised ski trip to Cardrona. 

I think I am speaking for everybody when I say that I enjoyed every single second of those three days and that I would have loved to stay longer. Besides that skiing causes a general feeling of happiness in me, we also had a lot of fun during the evening activities like relaxing in the bubble-spa in the campsite, to bring back our frozen feet, and organising our own dinners and food.

Looking back, our days were always fully packed with activities (waking up at 6 o'clock and skiing until 4) — maybe this is why time seemed to fly that fast.

Considering that on the first night we feared that there may not be enough snow to ski, the tracks were pretty good, especially on one side of the mountain and we had an amazingly clear blue sky on Thursday. To me, it was such great fun to be back skiing again, including the obligatory feeling of 'walking like an astronaut on the moon' as soon as you got out of your boots after catching the last lift.

We were free to choose between snowboarding and skiing for every level and while I joined the advanced ski group, we had ski lessons with Cardrona instructors in red overalls from 10.15am until lunch. Normally I'd say that those lessons were going to be super boring and that time with friends on the mountain is of the essence, but our ski instructor was extremely cool and funny. Instead of talking, he was more hands-on and directly showed us some 'massive' or 'wicked' jumps when going down off track. Inspired by him, we spent the afternoons on countless runs over ramps and jumps; on the second day even trying 180s, skiing backwards or spinning. (Probably didn't look as cool as we imagined - but we gave it a shot and laughed a lot).

We were been filming everything on two Go-Pro cameras and after those two days we ended up with an incredible 30GBs of video material, including many funny crashes that I'll be laughing about in 30 years time. Honestly, I can't believe that it is over and I'm going to miss all the people that were there.

Also one of the best things about the trip was that we grew together as a group and a lot of friendships developed - although we came from five different countries around the world, everybody was included in our group! I had the most amazing time and I will remember that trip forever as one of the best memories about New Zealand. Thank you so much Mr Trickey for making this possible and also a huge thank you to Mr Braid and Ms Daly and Hamish for taking care of us naughty students !

— Sophie Raab

At the end of June a group of international students and Kiwi students went to Wanaka on a ski trip. It took about four hours to get there on the first day and we went straight to the motor park in Wanaka, then we just left the stuff there and went to the supermarket. We divided into groups and bought food. After that we just chilled and ate pizza and talked.

On the second day we got up very early and went to the mountain before the sunrise. We waited for the ski field to open and I started learning to snowboard on the intermediate field and after the class I went up the mountain. After lunch we went on the hardest track, which was really hard. I fell about six or seven times. We tried all the different tracks, then went back because we were wet and tired. We went to the spa and stayed in it for two hours until dinner was ready.

On the third day we woke up early again and went to the ski field which was even better than the previous day. I went to the hardest track once. The other guys and instructors said that I was really good, even though it was only my second day snowboarding. I tried all the tracks again. By 3pm I was tired, my legs were sore and my calves were sore so I went to have a hot chocolate and waited for the others and relaxed. Then we travelled back. It was a really good trip.

— Murilo Graf Gamborgi