COVID-19- has the world turned upside down?

This horrid, untimely virus has spread around the world causing trouble for everyone, especially for the likes of seasonaires like myself who need to get to our next destination t

Not only has it affected travel, but it has also affected peoples ability's to earn money, keep their children safe and educated, ensure the health of their elders and grandparents, as well as the day to day essentials in life, from buying toilet roll to taking your kids to the swimming pool or local park. Everyone is going mad, is it really necessary behavior?

How did COVID-19 affect my job?

You're probably thinking we were all locked up in our houses, told not to go outside, the ski school lock down, students flying home but its all panned out very differently to what I ever predicted.

So, well the season didn’t really start out well financially for us all in the first place for a few reasons. One mainly being the lack of snow at the start of the season, with rumours going around that it was the worst start to the season that Niseko had seen in over 100 years and they didn’t predict it to get much better as the months progressed. No snow= no holiday-makers= no lessons.

Also, a lot of our students come from Australia and since there have been recent major fires all over Australia, people were evacuated out of their homes, lost or needed to invest lots of money in saving their properties, and therefore weren’t in a position to splash out on a luxury ski holiday in Niseko.

So how did COVID-19 affect it?

It just made the whole situation much worse. If they weren’t Australian, most students came from China, Hong Kong, Thailand, Singapore and other similarly located countries, and because of this, business plummeted dramatically. Anyone not on a full-season contract like myself, was thrown to the bottom of the priority list for lessons and told not to expect work. What’s more, since nobody was coming to resort in fear of getting the virus or getting stuck in Jaapan, it wasn't just the ski schools that were being affected by this madness; hotels, bars and restaurants had no holiday customers also started laying off their staff to stay afloat. The earlier suggestion from managers to look for a second job in town quickly flew out of the window.

There is, however, always a silver lining , and mine just happened to be white. Beautiful powdery snow days to ski whenever, wherever and however I wanted with all of my other ski-bum friends. Also, to make this whole situation a whole heap better my boyfriend had already booked to come shred with me for a week with his parents which just so happened to land right after some fresh snow. Safe to say my body is aching now from all the tree runs!

So to sum up, COVID-19 may have meant no money in my purse but it certainly had its perks.

What you might be surprised to hear is that many of my ski-bum friends in the same situation decided to use their time differently, partying to their hearts content with endless all-nighters in the karaoke bars and the famous ramen restaurants around town.

Stupidity? Dangerous? Disrespectful to those with COVID-19?

Any of these opinions come to mind? Well you see, ski instructors and seasonaires already have the stereotype of being laid back and oblivious to the outside world, coronavirus is no different. We're invincible 20 something year old's who spend all day outside in the fresh air, no harm in going to a not-so jam packed bar for a few drinks with the people you see everyday anyway right? It's debatable I know, and because nobody really knows the severity of this disease for the likes of us, I tried to find the balance and focused more my chance to ski more. I guess in the back of my mind I'm thinking "will they stop me from being able to go to New Zealand if they see me cough or look unwell?" well I've recently learned that yes they will. Two of my housemates were sent straight to their medical centres for tests and told to self-isolate for two weeks once they got home (and this was before countries upped their regulations).

So as you might already have read, my next destination following Japan was to be New Zealand. At the time of booking my flights cases of COVID-19 were rising dramatically all over the world and government travel rules were changing daily. I moved my flight forward to avoid being stuck, kept my head in the daily news for updates and luckily I got to New Zealand.

Current travel regulations in majority of countries state you must self-isolate for 14 days once you enter the country, USA, Australia, New Zealand have shut their boarder to all non-permanent residents or family of. I'm sure soon many more will have too.

So what are my COVID-19 self-isolation plans?

I've been incredibly lucky to be able to crash near Rotorua at my friend and housemate's Air b'n'b farm house for the two weeks and possibly longer. In the car on the way here I was wondering what the restrictions were exactly. Could I plan a big day hike? Find some hot springs? Go and sit with a bottle of wine and a book by the river and work on my tan? Or would I really have to stay inside and stare at the four walls around me for 2 week? My conclusion? If it's outside in the wilderness it goes, if it means being suck in a crowded place (not that there are any around here) it doesn't go. So I was racking my brains of all the things I could do to keep myself occupied in such boring times, especially the evenings if I'm to be by myself most of the time. I decided the evenings here would be the perfect time to start that blog I'd been thinking about.

Fast forward.. the 2020 NZ winter season has been and gone. Follow my story of how it went in my new post: 'Returning to Queenstown as a seasoned seasonaire'

The Ski Nomad