Goodbye to "Le Refuge"

Well that's it for us. Just over 5 months in the French Alps and we begin the long journey home via Australia.

Our thoughts are in a whirl as we scrub "Le Refuge" from top to bottom. But before we know it, it's 3 o'clock and we are dropping in the keys to Liz and saying our final final farewells to her and Sue who has dropped by. Tears from Liz as we hug our delightful friend, neighbour and ever so patient french professor and say "au revoir".

It is rather fitting that our final memory in Europe is of being lost in Geneva as we attempt to deliver the car back to the French side of Geneva Airport. We'll have mixed emotions about our dear "Penny" the GPS who has been diabolically unhelpful on occasions.

The list of things that we'll miss about living in Europe is long:

• The endless powder snow that was the hallmark of the 2008/2009 season,
• spectacular vistas of the European Alps;
• cheese....although we may have overdosed a little
• abundant and affordable red wine
• french bread, patissieries & charcuterie
• the sound of the beautiful french language
• and most importantly the friends that we have made along the way.

Our time in France has been a dream for so long, we still can't quite believe that it's actually come true. As we are now on the threshold of entering the real world once again, we will have to get busy and inspire ourselves with thoughts of our next adventure.....!!

What's the French Word for BBQ?

I will admit, that after 5 months of a carefree existence, today, we experienced a small dose of that pesky emotion - STRESS! After much dispute about the weight of our ski bag, we borrowed Liz's scales to confirm that it was indeed, hugely heavy at 34kg!! There was no question, unless we lightened the load, we would be paying excess luggage. Back again to Madame La Poste for 2 more boxes! Not quite what we had envisaged.

2/The French Get Together - a BBQ in the late Spring Sunshine

2/ Geraldine, Bertrand and their baby boy

This afternoon, Rick & Liz had kindly invited a few of our local french friends for a casual BBQ in the late afternoon spring sunshine. Joining us were Bertrand, Geraldine and their gorgeous baby boy, and Christophe and his young son - Taos, Gavin & Sue and their "fur baby" Winston.

It was a lovely relaxed afternoon as we enjoyed a delicious array of meats and salads. We're not quite sure whether our teacher, Liz was proud of efforts to speak french or cringing in her boots! Graeme and I find that we can generally get our message across with a bizarre mixture of language, charade actions and arm waving! At least Christophe was used to our tortured attempts at Franglish!!

We are still struggling to come to terms with the reality of going home. We keep saying it, but our time in France has just gone so quickly. In the blink of an eye, the wonderful winter we have enjoyed has disappeared and been replaced with a sunny and balmy spring. All around our village, the crocus, daffodils and tulips abound. There is a feeling of frenetic energy as all the building projects around the village spring to life after the dormancy of the long winter.

3/The "fur babies" - Winston and Biggles

As the BBQ discussion turns to visiting NZ, I wonder how many of our Araches friends will actually make the long journey. Only R&L have been there before and truly know how far away it is. We have observed in our short time that France has many attractions. Compared to so many other European countries, there is still a feeling of spaciousness here. With so many climates and different environments, it is easy to understand why the French are not renowned international travellers.

We'll have to wait and see!!

4/ The Gang - R+L, G&S at the end of the night!

Let the Packing Begin!

Hmmm, time to start the dreaded task of packing. It is amazing how much "bidule", "truc" and "machin" (our 3 favourite french words for STUFF), we have managed to accumulate over the last 5 months. The miserly economy class baggage limit was foremost in our minds today as we began the daunting task of clearing Le Refuge of our detritus.

After discovering that it would be cheaper to pay Marie to personally fly to NZ with our skis, we have decided to rely on the old fashioned solution. La Poste!! Still frightfully expensive, especially if you do the conversion to NZ $. Nevertheless a check of the Lufthansa website revealed that excess baggage was charged at E30/kg...making La Poste seem positively reasonable.

A typical morning of hilarity ensued at our local post office as we endeavoured to work out the most cost effective and secure solution to our postal problem. Our charming madam La Poste was wonderfully helpful, but as always our "..orrendous francais" presented the usual confusions.

Eventually, everyone queuing in the post office helped us with translation as we searched for the right box, mailing option and insurance decision. It will never cease to amaze us how often the wrongly maligned french have come to our assistance when we are making a huge botch of things. Contrary to the popular opinion, we have consistently found our french locals to be wonderfully patient and helpful. Everyone from the bank manager to the fromagereuse, the apothecary to the publican has been very kind and welcoming to us. We have been humbled by the amount of help we have received over the last 5 months. It will certainly give us pause for thought when we return to NZ and hear someone struggling to find their feet in our little town.

This evening we have been treated to a delicious "slap up" meal in Chamonix with the usual anglo suspects. Part farewell for us and Dave & Sue who leave Les Carroz for a new chalet in Les Gets, and part celebration to mark the end of the winter season, we enjoyed a delicious meal at the golf house restaurant in Chamonix. The food was totally delicious and for France (fairly reasonably priced). Joining us were R&L, welsh G&S, irish D&S and also english friends of R&L - Tania and Brian. Tania is a physio and Brian is a builder working with Rick in the summer. Keen ski tourers, it's a shame we didn't meet up with them at the beginning of the season rather than right at the end. But that's been the way of things as the reality of our imminent departure is really starting to sink in.

Speed Skiing - You'd have to be nuts!!

1/ A nutty Speed Skier - check out the calf foils!!

Speed Skiing - you'd have to be nuts wouldn't you? Graeme and I, have never in our lives seen such a crazy endeavour....well hang on a minute, now we come to think about it, bungy jumping and zorbing in NZ is not that sane either? But here, in the Alps, going as fast as you possibly can ie., pointing your skis directly down a 1km steep slope without turning once, doesn't seem that sane to us.

But we were fascinated to watch these guys. Professionally sponsored with all the latest technology and aerodynamic equipment, these guys and gals took their sport very seriously.

2/ Check out the length of those skis!

The current speed record for men is 251.4km/hr and for women 242.59 km/hr. Yes folks, I am correctly quoting those numbers! That's faster than terminal velocity when you freefall normally (193km/hr). Imagine what a slip and fall would feel like at that kind of speed. Apparently, their worst injury is burns from abrasion with the snow. The mind boggles!! Here's some fab professional footage of both those world records. Here's our own spectacular footage on the day!!

3/ Trying to catch these speedy guys on film was just about impossible!

4/ Needless to say, the wax salesman was doing a roaring trade today!!

OMG - Verbier!

1/ Not even at the top yet! View to Mont Gele - 3023m

I know I said the same when we first visited Chamonix. But I will have to repeat the exclamation. Today we visited Verbier! OMG! It's one of the most amazing resorts we've seen in Europe so far. To be fair, we didn't make it to the 3 valleys, in France, but this resort was impressive. I can't remember the stats but I think there is about 400 - 500km of groomed trails across 4 valleys. The infrastructure is amazing. Brand new lifts, gondolas and telepheriques everywhere. You can smell the money in this town. It is definitely a home to the rich and famous. I mean to say, we passed Richard Branson on the chairlift this morning!! Apparantly he has a little shack here!

2/ Huge infrastructure - 150 person telepheriques!

But the attribute that most excited us was the vast area of backcountry that appears to be available from the resort. While it's glaciated at over 3000m, the terrain looks to be a lot more mellow than the Chamonix backcountry which generally requires serious mountaineering and climbing skills.

There are also a number of "intineraires hors piste" that are promoted by the resort. Well sign -posted, they are generally accessible with only a short tour from the lifts.

3/ At the summit. Mont Fort 3330m! Behind - Verbier backcountry. yum!!

In the last week of their season, Verbier was definitely in wind down mode. Only about a 1/4 of the mountain was open, so we managed to ski just about all the lifts. At 3000m it was still firm packed powder, while lower down it was Australian powder - ie., slush. We didn't mind. The sun was out for most of the morning with the heat cumulous cloud only building in the afternoon.

We spent a great deal of our time on the sides of the runs gazing at all the amazing off-piste available! In fact, we spent a lot of time with our mouths open, gaping in astonishment. Having met John Falkiner, the ex-pat Aussie who guides here, we couldn't help but think he has chosen the most perfect place to be a mountain guide. Verbier's terrain, its height, the infrastructure and the wealthy clientele must equate to good business for him.

Today, there is also a FIS World Speed Skiing Championship race. Having never seen anything quite like this, we were fascinated and spent a good part of the early morning watching these madmen hurtle down the slope. More about this with pictures in a separate post!

4/ The Speed Skiing Course from the top of Mont Fort!

What a shame we didn't get to Verbier earlier in the season. We had free tickets, but somehow time ran out? Relaxing with a glass of wine & enjoying a most delicious mountain lunch, we began making a list of all the things we "wished we'd done". That's Pandora's Box for you! Once you've had a taste of what Europe Alps have to offer - you want more!!

Oh well at least we've made it to Verbier today! Aren't we lucky?

The Last Snow..and the World is a Very Small Place

1/ & 2/ Graeme enjoying the last powder run of the season. Not bad for 20 April?

Last ski at Les Grand Montets, Chamonix today. To celebrate the occasion, Hughie ("the weather god") turned on some boot-top powder for us. Actually it was a day of 2 seasons, winter at 3300m - 2800m and spring below 2800m.

When skiing in Chamonix, never forget to pack the goggles! It might be fine and sunny and positively hot at the valley floor. But as we experienced today, at the top of the LGM cable car (3300m) it was still winter with driving snow and a strong easterly wind. But what a treat! Once off the windblasted top lift station we enjoyed about 500m boot-top powder before the mountain remembered it was April and the snow turned heavy and wet. What a way to end our skiing in Chamonix! Thanks Hughie!!

2/ Andy getting amongst it. Aaaha..that's what I do with the right leg?

But the classic Oxley moment came during our 3rd visit to the top of the LGM cable car. After climbing down the steep stairs to begin our ski, we were approached by an older English chap who started to make conversation with us. Edward was skiing on his own and asked whether he could join us for the run down the glacier. Warning him that we were no speed freaks ( I suspect he knew that already and he'd picked his targets well) we invited him to join us.

The Pointe de Vue (and our Oxley variation) is a huge glacial run. With a few rests along the way it usually takes us about 30 - 40 minutes. Ed, a Chamonix local, was keen to show us a couple of his variations. As we made our way down the mountain, we learned that his daughter was currently on her way to NZ and later that his sister was also a "kiwiphile" and have visited many times, with Wanaka being her favourite place.

We also learned that he was friends with Ken & Pat from Ireland who we had met on one of our first trips to Chamonix.

4/ Andy & Ed...what are the chances?

One more stop along the mountain and the circle of coincidence continued to close. Ed, explained that his niece, Stephanie had done a winter of cross-country training in Wanaka, and that his sister, an Alexander Technique teacher, had seriously contemplated moving to Wanaka. Alarm bells started to ring in my head. I knew this lady. "Your sister wouldn't happen to be Hilary Cook would it?" Mouth agape, Ed couldn't believe the coincidence. I explained that Hilary Cook used to stay with us Te Wanaka Lodge.

How small is this planet?

Our Last Day Skiing with Teste Family

1/ Hubert & the Racer - Camille!

A fitting end to our stay with the Teste Family. We shared their first day of the 2008/09 season in December and we were thrilled to enjoy their last day too.

It is closing day for Les Carroz, Samoens and Morillon but the Teste Family decided to ski at Flaine, where the snow is still good. A little top up of snow 2 days ago above 2000m meant that we were still able to have some fresh tracks off-piste. Amazing.

In typical Teste family style several high speed runs on the groomers were mandatory for Hubert (with his shadow Camille hot on his heels) before we were able to tempt them off-piste for a run in the Ger. Serious spring snow greeted us but we enjoyed a couple of runs to say goodbye to our favourite part of the Flaine resort.

Back at the chalet we tucked into a delicious BBQ lunch with the family.

I suspect that Graeme and I, are a disappointment to Hubert & Marie. Our french is still atrocious! But we blame them!! Their english is too good! To make jokes and really have a two-sided laugh, a common language is a must.

We hope that we have inspired them to make the long trip to NZ some day. Hopefully if the NZ$ stays low it will be affordable. But since living here, I can understand why the French are such reluctant travellers. Their country has just about every type of climate imagineable. Beaches, serious mountains, rolling countryside and exciting cities with history, art & culture at every turn. New Zealand and Australia are lovely but I think it would be hard to truly impress the French. We'll have to wait and see!

2/ Team shot: Teste Family & "A&G"