One of the incentives for accepting a job in Wellington is that it is only 4 hours from Mt Ruapehu. Why is this significant? Well, for those who don’t know me that well, one of my passions is of course snowboarding. Anyhow, its been 3 weeks since arriving in NZ and I figured it was time to head to the snow. I booked into the cheapest backpackers I could find, rented a car and off I went.
Most times when I travel I take my laptop so that I can stay in touch with the rest of the world. Normally this involves paying some outrageous fee to a hotel, that has already charged through the roof for a room, just to get a couple of hours of Internet access. This time I figured that I would leave the laptop at home as I was unlikely to use it as connectivity was highly unlikely. Or so I thought. I had forgotten that we are in a new era of FlashPackers – travellers who live on a shoestring, yet have all the devices of your average executive. Not only does the Mountain View Motel have Internet, it’s free!
The next bit of technology I wanted to comment on are the scanners that the mountain staff use to monitor punters. In the lift queues the staff scan everyone lift ticket (barcode scanner) to validate them. I restisted the urge to ask “Is that a Pocket PC?”. This said, I would be interested to know what devices they are as they have to handle some pretty average conditions. Today was sub-zero and raining, all day.