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Be Our Valentine Contest 2018

Congratulations to our winners!
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Package 1: Give me that Beep Beep!
Congratulations: Izzy Crohan

It was September 2015 and I was in week two of my 10-week solo drive around the top of Australia. Tunes cranking, I was driving up the coast of Western Aus. and I see a hitchhiker by the road.

He was sweating like a hooker in church and I kind of felt bad for him in the heat, but if you've ever seen the movie Wolf Creek you'll know not to pick up strangers in the Australian outback if you don't want to be brutally dismembered. So I awkwardly avoided eye contact, turned up the music and continued on my way.

The following day I was passing through a town called Shark Bay and lo and behold there he is again, standing by the road eagerly waving his thumb. This time I decided to pull over only to discover this guy is 11/10 hot.

So he hops in the car and we get chatting and this guy has me in stitches he is so funny. He tells me he is headed for Broome, which is over 20 hours more of travelling. Unlike the poor souls from Wolf Creek I got pretty lucky with my hitchhiker. I never did drop him in Broome; that 20 hours of travelling has turned into over two years and I am the luckiest girl in the world to be able to see the world with the sexiest hitchhiker ever.

Package 2: I choo choo choose you!
Congratulations: Angela Ertel

Our connection was back in 1996. We met on a blind date and went up the old village gondola to ski on Whistler Mountain.

We skied a few laps on green and decided to go up the Peak Chair — the old one that used to kill poles at midstation. We chose to ski West Cirque even though I had never done it before.

With both of us at the top and first impressions so important, I went in first.

Needless to say, nerves and all, I lost my ski right at the top of the chute — and slid for quite a while losing everything that wasn't on tight. My ego was checked and I was feeling pretty humbled.

But I knew I'd found the man of my dreams in Whistler when he carefully skied all of my belongings to me safely at the clearing below, without any laughter!

The joke at our Edgewater wedding that summer was I fell for him hard that day on Whistler Mountain!

Package 3: Gondola rendezvous for two
Congratulations: Angela Pope

"Are you related to Daniel?" a voice behind me asked.

I was exasperated, hot and sweaty; teaching kids to ski in Perisher was not an easy job.

"Nope," I replied disdainfully whilst trying to load a child onto the practice T-bar.

"Can I help?"

"Nope."

I had this, finally getting the child up the tee while yelling, "don't sit down, DON'T SIT DOWN," over and over.

"May I ride the T-bar with you?"

"Geeze this guy is so bloody..." I looked up and a 6'4" tanned, blonde man was grinning down at me. The scathing third "nope" didn't make it out.

We loaded, and I hated the fact I was easily a foot shorter than him; the T-bar was just above his knees. He was funny, passionate about skiing and just a little bit of a spunk. I was the rude, quick-tempered redhead who had nearly bitten his head off. The T-bar ride was far shorter then I remembered as I fumbled over words and nearly fell over unloading.

He looked down and said, "I'll see you around?"

I nodded. I'd make sure of that! That T-bar ride turned into the love of my life. Five years later, we're in Whistler now, and I still smile whenever I ride the T-bars (or any lift) with him.

Package 4: Fast & furious
Congratulations: Simon Andrews

When I missed my flight home to Australia for Christmas due to a freak snowstorm that shut down Vancouver's roads, it was pretty high up there on crap days.

I ended up booking a new flight through a new airline leaving the next day. On that flight from Hong Kong, I happened to sit next to a total 10/10. After seeing him struggle putting on his compression socks, I just had to say something.

"Are they compression socks? They've helped me with my huge swollen feet and are so good!"

(Yes, I opened the conversation telling him about my fat feet.)

We enjoyed dinner and drinks and watched the same movie — just like a real date, except there was no escape. I decided to give him my number after we landed and we ended up meeting a few days later. After that first night, my entire trip ended up with us basically speed dating to see where this could go.

I brought him everywhere, including meeting all my family and friends, it was like a real-life made-for-TV Christmas movie. We've hit it off so well that we're making plans to move countries to be together. If the Bali volcano hadn't erupted, and it didn't snow in Vancouver, we wouldn't have both been on that flight, so we figure it's worth taking a chance!


Thank you dear readers for your Valentine's stories. Be sure to enter next year for another chance to win. Until then keep riding, flying, and crusing, love-birds!

Happy Valentine's Day with love, from Pique Newsmagazine



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