Aprés ski roll

Ruapehu Bulletin, Volume 12, Issue 553, 13 September 1994, Page 6

Aprés ski roll

OK. It's not fair that Gossip should write about all the humorous misfortunes of people and ignore those of the Bulletin staff — so even though it's a bit late, here's the story about editor Robert Milne' s mountain dri ving habits: Because he and fellow skier Duane Dixon don't get much skiing in these days (it's true!), they went for a bit extra recently. They and two others decided to ski down to Rob's car at the 13km chain barrier carpark, where Rob's wife Marie had left it earlier in the day, Apparently the tree skiing was fantastic (pity about the photos — by the time they got their act together it was almost dark). But after congratulating themselves and saying goodbye to the others as they drove away, they found that the lights had been left on (dear playful daughter got the blame) and the battery was dead flat. Now the car was on a slope so it seemed to be not a big problem — except the car has some kind of anti-crash starting device so won't go no matter how hard you try. "Not a problem," said Rob. "I know from my bus driving days that you can coast all the way to the Club from here." Sure, but it would help if it was light enough to see! After Duane perfected the phrase "are you sure you can see?" they made it to opposite the club and outside Duane' s house, with only a little pushing (in socks — did we not mention that Rob only had ski boots and you can't coast a car in ski boots!)