Morocco Madness

After living in Austrian knee deep powder for a few months, I figured it was time to go an explore another part of Africa away from the snow... Morocco was the destination and it did not dissapoint. I absolutely loved it!!!! Probably my favourite country to date as I had such amazing time with Emi (legend that I went to Polytech with) and Marco (Emis mate from Austria), plus the landscape is so incredible there, the rock climbing is unbelievably good, the surf is premo, the Sahara is the friggin SAHARA so that was naturally pretty awesome, climbing Mt Toubkal was a mission that I will never forget and Marrakesh city was just crazy!!!!!!!!!

Camel trekking in the mighty Sahara Desert was pretty cool

And staying right on the beach in Immsoune with my new found buddy Momo was pretty meen too!!!

Not to mention the food!!! So good. This is Tagine - a Berber favourite

The locals were cheeky as but dam funny... I did not want to get henna, but within a second of telling me that I had beautiful eyes and giving me a brochure to look at... I had Henna all over my hand and no idea how she did it that fast!!!

After being invited to dinner with a local carpet maker we were quite surprised to find ourselves wearing traditional Berber outfits within the hour of walking in the door...

The beach side town of Immsoune was so beautiful that I seriously considered buying land there and starting my own Riad. Heres a 6 year old girl collecting seawater to flush the toilet in her home- yes the pink house built into the rock!!!
Emi 'the legend' Earle absolutely knackered half way up Day 1 of our attempt to summit Mt Toubkal; North Africas highest mountain. She came down with a random and violent spat of food poisoning which resulted in Emi not eing able to get past base camp... and therefore get looked after by a overly friendly local dude called Mohammed... he fed her Cumin-broth, rubbed her stomach and face too much, and cried over and over again "oh my mineee, and my mineee"... poor girl had to endure this and be sick at the same time!!!! I dont know which one would be worse!!!

At 4200m I was pretty stoked to be on the summit of Mt Toubkal

Me and Emi so stoked and proving it!!! We loved every moment of this rad trip!!!! well... except for the food poisioning, the robberies and the day long bus rides!!!!

Emi with the Atlas Mountains in the background... on our decent of Mt Toubkal when Emi could walk again! (such a stubbornly awesome, self motivated, strong kiwi girl... tu meki!!!)

Check out the climbers paradise in the background... A wicked as tent filled with African drums, beds, tea pots, and with a mean swimming-hole right infront of it... and the best thing is that its situated right in the middle of various climbing crags... such a cool place to hang out when it got too hot to climb!

Emi and I looking as authentic as possible after being dressed by a local dude who is a carpet maker for half the year then a nomad who lives in the desert for the other half of the year. As well as being able to transform a couple kiwi chicks into Berber woman... he can cook up a mean Chicken Tagine too!!! Cheers Mohammed!

The only way to cool down after climbing in the intense Moroccan sun... Heres Marco freezing in the snowmelt-filled river and Emi melting in the hot Morocco sun trying hard not to fall off!!!

The water's chilly, the sun is burning hot, the rock in the background is all climbable and the chickiebabe blowing the kiss couldn't be happier!!!!

Marrakesh is one out-of-it city!!!! Mule-drawn carts everywhere, salesmen galore, alot of sugar filled green tea, orange stalls for miles, incredible night markets, and heaps of cheap goods to buy everywhere you look!!!

Our awesome climbing guidebook that consisted of very accurate, draw to scale maps of all the climbing routes around Todra Gorge!!! (and the sad thing was that it cost $50 kiwi dollars!!)

Todra Gorge is enormous!!!

The local berber women are absolute legends!!!! We saw them every morning on our walk to the crag

Team Xtreme Morocco styles... Nora, Mohammed and Mineeee

Marco and I starting on the Day 1 flats heading towards Mt Toubkal

This trip was so incredible, I absolutely loved it. Even though Emi had $600 pounds stolen from her bag and was sick as a dog for the last few days in Morocco and then a couple weeks after leaving, and I had $100 Euro stolen, plus my luggage was lost on the flight over there from Spain, and Marco couldn't understand us most of the time as we were speaking "cool kiwi" not English... the trip was amazing. You can surf, climb rocks, endure day long bus rides, summit snow covered mountains, ride camels through the Sahara, be hussled in the Marrakesh markets, eat the most delicious food, sleep on rooftops and be painted in Hennah to your hearts content... and thats what we did, and I recommend it to anyone!!!

European White Gold

St Anton... one of the biggest and best (in my opinion) skiing resorts in Europe, and I was lucky enough to spend a quality few months there at the end of the European winter.


What an amazing place... with almost 500km of ONPISTE skiing terrain and easily 5 times that amount of offpiste awesome, steep, deep, powder skiing, plus the most craziest apris skiing atmosphere that I have ever witnesses... it was guaranteed to be a great season... AND THEN THE SNOW CAME AND DIDNT STOP!!!!!!!! Freshies everyday, powpow galore and still finding fresh tracks at 4.30pm most days!!! Incredible. So incredible that I didnt ever want to stop and take photos... so heres a couple but it is literally the only ones I took in 3 months!!!!

The view from my bedroom window... pretty exciting when it dumps that much every night for a solid month!!!! It also makes an interesting walk down the hill to work too.

Any kiwi can appreciate my houses name!!!! Go House Pies!!!!! It also backed onto the slopes, and was a mere 100metres from Mooserwert!!!

MOOSERWERT!!!!! The craziest bar you'l ever see. Its only open from 2-9pm, then youve got to ski home in the dark after too many beers, schnapps and shots!!! Everyone is wearing ski boots and dancing on the tables, goggle tans are compulsary, they serve shots-on-tap, and if your wearing a transeiver then your pretty much the coolest person ever... and if your European then the one piece super tight ski outfits are the hottest thing on the planet!!!!! (This photo was taken at 4.30 pm one Wednesday afternoon).
This photo tries to capture the sheer size of terrain available for skiers in St Anton... real nice!!!

And this is just too funny... the new-school snowman that guests left for us at the hotel I was working in.

The season was fantastic and I was soooo stoked to land a job there as it was made up of mainly English tourists so I didnt have to learn German very quickly!!! Cool town with amazing skiing, an awesome vibe that just never stops, and a ratio of 10 guys to every girl (Hence the nick name St MAnton) therefore resulting in free drinks for the season. Good times