Why Snoel's blog?????

Photo looking towards the highway from my house roof.

With over 50 blogs on Snoel's blog now a couple of people have asked why 'snoel's blog? There is a bit of a story to this which is probably(only just) worth telling.

This might take a while, so get yourself a coffee, or tea before you read further.

Ok. so now that your settled in for the long version - Here it is.

A few years back after leaving my teaching job in Invercargill my partner Julie got herself a job at the Hanmer Springs Thermal Pools. I soon found work as a life guard there too and also started instructing in the Outdoors, as that seemed to fit my skill set, and it wasn't teaching!

Anyway, the work was flexible and I became increasingly interested in developing my skills as an outdoor instructor. This meant I could take off for the hills on a regular basis and many of the Mountains around the Lewis Pass and Molsworth area got climbed and skied during that time.

Occasionally I'd get a bit of a break in the schedule, long enough for an extended trip to somewhere a bit different, provided that I could scrape up enough cash to cover the rent, petrol and food, while I was away.

So this one time I went on a solo trip to the Annette Ice platue on the Muller range during January.It was a great trip with an extended settled weather window and I skied corn, climbed Mt Sealy and slept under the stars for a good few days.

As time was running out I returned to Mt. Cook and contemplated the drive back to Hanmer. As usual the gas tank was pretty near empty, so I needed to find someone to share the cost of petrol at least as far as Christchurch. As I was sitting there contemplating my predicament, along came Camel.

Camel was from the Check(sp?) republic and was walking out of the white horse campground and (in broken English)asked me if I was going to Christchurch? This seemed too good to be true so I just played along and said that I could be persuaded to head away from the hills early, provided that he was prepared to pay for the gas. Camel thought about it for a while, and must of worked out that it was still cheaper than the bus, so said 'ok' as long as we could stop to swim in the lake on the way through.
'Sure no problem. hop in!'

So we're driving out of Mt Cook and I say to him : 'by the way, my name's Noel'. And he says: 'Snoel? Why you called Snoel?'
No, no my name's Noel.
'Yes, yes Snoel I hear you first time!'
So by this stage I'm just happy that my plans have worked out and I'm happy to be heading home, so I'm past correcting him repeatedly every time he calls me Snoel. I also figured he already has a funny name anyway 'Camel'!!!!

It turns out that Camel is a really nice bloke. We get to chatting and I tell him about life in Hanmer Springs. So he swims in the lake and we fill the tank in Tekapo. Eventually I drop him off in Christchurch and head back to the life in Hanmer.

A few weeks later I'm doing my lifeguard cool dude impersonation routine, by the pool in Hanmer, and one of the other lifeguards heads over to me and says:' There's a guy, calls himself 'Camel' is at the front office asking if there is a 'Snoel' here. That's not you is it?'
'Er yeah could be....'

So there it is. That plus the fact that I do like to play in the snow has cemented my nick name 'Snoel'.