August 7th, 2011 by admin
Had a great couple of courses in Queenstown in July. The courses did have a bit of a different ‘feel’ about them.
First course was a slightly larger group and the lecturers included a couple of great visitors from the US – with some very real and recent wilderness and austere medical experience. Lovely fresh snow for the practical teaching, was hard work even walking in knee deep soft white stuff. Had one snow ‘virgin’ from Oz who had never seen it before!
Second course smaller and more intimate and perhaps a little more relaxed. Snow was a bit older for the practical teaching but fresh snow on the final day added a real atmosphere to the scenarios (as did a real cold water immersion scenario!). Created a few problems though – blocked roads and closed airports stranded some of our participants in Queenstown. There are definitely worse places to be stuck. Some took advantage with an extra day or two skiing. One instructor (who will remain nameless) was flown out by a helicopter chartered by his hospital such was the chaos caused by the weather!