Spending a Summer in New Zeland

this isn't much advice but hopefully it will be helpful...if you want cheap housing in queenstown, rent out a cabin in the campgrounds right by the gondola.  They're really shitty but get the job done, I lived in one this past summer with three other kids for 50 bucks a week which is damn good for that area

Thanks man, good to know.

If you are into park mostly go to Snowpark, and stay in Wanaka, workin on the mountain you will get very little riding time my suggestion is a bar job. That would also be way more reliable as your income isnt weather dependent.

bump

my threads.

my school offers a summer program there so i might jump on this also.

Spent 5 weeks there last summer but I didn't work on the mountains. I would definitely check out Queenstown while you're there. You'll have a great time, it's such an awesome country!

Basically in the South Island of NZ, you have two places where you would want to live and ski (no Methven does not count), these places are Wanaka and Queenstown. Wanaka has 3 ski areas nearby, Treble Cone, Cardrona and SnowPark. Queenstown has Remarkables and Coronet. Everyone lives in Wanaka/Qtown and drives/gets a bus/hitches to the mountains everyday, so the social scenes are focused in those towns.

Wanaka is quieter and smaller than Qtown, but has more of a ski vibe. The ski areas are probably better over there too, but you can't get a pass that covers them all, so it'd be pretty expensive to ski them all. Qtown is a party town, which is super fun to live in. Remarks has a decent park, and fun steeps too. Coronet gets busy, but actually has some fun stuff when there is pow, you can get both these mountains on a really good value pass.

I am a little biased because I have lived in Queenstown for 4 seasons and love it there.

As for jobs, I instruct and love it, but I don ski for myself as much as people who work in restaurants/bars etc. If you don't already instruct, I would say those are the jobs to go for. Unfortunately they are hard to get ahead of time, you have to turn up early, and be lucky to find a good one. Mountain jobs (lifty, f+b, rentals) have the benefit of giving you a pass/transport/sweet hookups, but the reality of many of them is lots of work, not much pay, and only 2 days to ski a week.

Overrated...I'd say go to Redstar just in spite of Fergburger. But really, VB is where it's at.

Firstly, Redstar is in Wanaka, secondly, Take that back! Ferg is awesome, I tried all the main gourmet burger competitors in the southern lakes area (Frankenburger, Devil Burger, Redstar), and ferg is still the king, even if it is not quite as good as it was back in the day. What is VB?

Ha, obviously Redstar is in Wanaka. I didn't realize we were sticking to the queen town only. VB is Velvet Burger, and is by far mightier than Ferg and Red combined. To be honest though, if Ferg only stepped up the quality of the patty it would take first. But damn man, for a burger to be nice it needs a solid beef patty, and Fergburger just doesn't quite deliver in that way.

On a side note, I noticed most the people who would rant about Ferg ate it for drunk munchies more often than not....just saying

Well the original ferg lover did specify qtown. Where is velvet burger, I've been to Wanaka a few times and not seen it?

Ferg has gone downhill a bit with it's insane popularity, they used to make all the patties fresh, but now they get premade ones, because otherwise that queue outside would be even longer. Still unreal though.

I would say my ferg intake is mostly sober now, def sometimes a fantastic drunk snack though. In 07 I ate every item on the menu (except the tofu one).

I went to NZ for three weeks in the summer of 2008. i was like 15 or 16

it was incredibly fun. i loved every second of it. most amazing country in the world. its just so beautiful.

I suggest staying in Queenstown. Just go up to the Remarkables every day to work. its not the far.
the remarkables was one of my favorite mountains. its not the biggest, its not the most well known, but it is just so much fun. lift access to a cat track the leads to open faces for skiing on pow day. a couple cliffs thrown in there and everyone can watch you huck them from the cliff.
there is also a ton of touring skiing which our leaders did. there is also the natural terrain park, which they have at a few other mountains in the north east as well.

i had a ton of fun there. my favorite mountain.

lemme know if you have more questions

and fergburger is like sex between two buns. i must have ate there 7 times while i was there.... just another reason to live in queenstown.

Is it expensive living? or is it generally reasonable?

i swear the only time you post on this site james is to help out some1 who wants to go live in nz, or it seems anyway

Nah, I help out people going to Japan too! Plus when I am really bored I post in politics threads, but that is a little like banging my head against a brick wall.