Haven’t been here for a while..
I haven’t been on here for a while, been busy building a web site and trying to keep out of trouble… Add to that a big Radio controlled model aeroplane I’ve started to build… will keep me out of mischief for a long time..
More snow and skiing
December 8, 2009
Filed under Snow fun, Snow news
Tags: Australian snow resorts, first time, Fun in the snow, holiday, Jindabyne, live for the snow, Mount Kosciusko, Perisher Valley, ski holidays, Skiing, Smiggins Hole, Snow fun, snowboarding, Snowy Mountains, Thredbo, winter
Each time I went skiing and left I couldn’t wait for the time when I could return. As I lived several hundred kilometres away from the ‘Snowy Mountains’ it was – and still is – a ‘big’ excursion to get down there. On the way down (the Snowy Mountains are situated in south eastern Australia and well south of where I live) to the snow I’d eagerly watch the horizon as I’d exit out of Cooma which was still a good 100 kilometres away from the ski field for the vision of snow of the top of the distant hill tops.. If it was a particularly good/cold winter you sometimes could even see snow on the hills about Canberra and coming into Cooma but this didn’t happen often. When leaving the snow I’d be looking back over my shoulder driving away thinking “when will I be back?” It was always too long!!
I went as often as I could each year and stayed in various places around Jindabyne and Berridale – I found I couldn’t afford the exhorbitant prices the hotels charged to stay ‘on the mountain’ and had to find alternate accommodation ‘off the hill’ but this often involved driving about 50 kilometres or more each way to get there and back. It always ended up being a quite expensive trip!
My skiing was improving!! I loved the feel of sliding down the hills over bumps, dodging fallen bodies! I had a reasonable semblance of control – most of the time and it was great! I didn’t take too many more lessons but tried to emulate others I saw who I thought looked good when skiing – usually the ‘Austrian’ ski style was the one that people tried to adopt with the skis quite close together – how things have changed now! In those early years I also found how important it was to wear good eye protection – on one trip I remember my eyes becoming so burnt and sore they felt like they had grains of sand impressed into them. They were red raw with tears constantly running out and down my face, to open and look out of them was extremely painful. Thankfully I learned my lesson and that has never happened again!
Around 1980 I had my first overseas ski trip. It was a ‘package’ type tour and I decided to travel alone (except for the group on the tour). It was a great experience and introduction to ski conditions that existed elsewhere in the world. The tour took us to the ski fields around Banff (Canada), Vail and Aspen in the USA – a really great ski trip over a period of about 3 weeks – including a stop off at Hawaii on the way home. But more of this trip Next time!!
The Snowadventurer
Skiing Thredbo in late 1970′s
December 3, 2009
Filed under Snow fun, Snow news
Tags: Australian snow resorts, Fun in the snow, holiday, live for the snow, Mount Kosciusko, Perisher Valley, ski holidays, Skiing, Smiggins Hole, snow, Snow fun, snowboarding, Snowy Mountains, Thredbo, winter
More Skiing..
Well after the trip down to the snow with Ross the end of the season was near and I had to wait another 8 or 9 months before the snow again began to fall down in Australia’s Snowy Mountains. Ross wasn’t really that keen (he’s a bit of a wimp when it comes to sports) so I made plans to go by myself..
I think I’d broken up with another girl at the time (or perhaps it was the same one again?) but I was ‘alone’ once more… I didn’t want to drive all that way down by myself and money wasn’t a terrible problem at the time so I decided to book a trip down for 10 days of skiing flying from Sydney’s KingsfordSmith airport down to the thriving town of Cooma on the threshold of the Snowy Mountains and about 60 kilometres away from Thredbo where I was going to spend my holiday.
I’d bought new “Fischer Cut 70″ skis – 180cm long (as I was an accomplished skier – Not!) – the whole ensemble of clothes and boots etc and my parents drove me down to the airport – which took about 1.5 hrs. The flight down was just on an hour – waiting around and checking in before take off at least another 1.5hrs and then the coach trip from Cooma up to Thredbo another 1.5hrs!! I should have driven!! – Normally at that time in the mid to late 1970′s driving time down to Thredbo from where I lived was around 6 Hrs so I really didn’t save much time and spent alot more in flight costs!
Anyway – I arrived finally and stayed in a well known up market hotel in Thredbo (whose name has now changed and due to memory loss I don’t remember the original) I was put into a room with another guy who was from South Africa and that was that… This was well before Snow making had made an appearance at Thredbo and I recall being disappointed at the amount or lack of Snow about the Village… It was visible up the mountain but that appeared to be along way away…I’d been expecting to see it banking against the side of the bus as we travelled up the Alpine Way but alas, that wasn’t the case..
I was booked in for 2 weeks of lessons (well 10 days) and not being too adventurous chose the ‘little bit above beginner’ category…My instructor was an Austrian guy (aren’t they all?) named Bernti who in later years built a large Hotel in Thredbo named – you guess???? ”Berntis”
My skiing improved markedly as I tried to replicate Bernti’s method and examples.. I was king of the Green runs all over the mountain!! We first started at the top of Merritts – which at that time was the only beginner area at Thredbo and eventually crossed over to ski the ‘Basin’ which was accessible from the top of Mt. Crackenback chair.. This chair by the way – back in those days took about 20 minutes to reach the top – now its a fast detachable Quad and on full speed takes something like 5 or 7 minutes… Anyway back to the Basin… I remember thinking how hard it was, coming down from the top of the old T Bar (Which is still there) and arriving at the last drop near the base of the T bar where there was always a huge queue of people waiting – (and still is) – The last drop generally had a bunch of moguls on it and rarely did I get down to the lift line without giving the waiting queue some entertainment by falling/crashing at least once on the way down!
The 10 day holiday soon came to an end (in 10 days!) and I caught the coach back down to Cooma for the flight home.. – my ‘trip’ was actually 2 x 5 day holidays put together so I really paid for 2 airfares (in the middle days) for Nothing – not very bright was I??
Waiting for me at Sydney was my Dad who drove me back home and learned of my adventures – not all skiing mind you – My parents found out that I now had a new girlfriend, I was 20 and she was nearly 30!! Great for me but my Mum wasn’t terrible impressed! I remember Mum telling me that my girlfriend was “after young blood” - I think I replied “she can have it”!! I’d actually met this girl/woman in one of my group ski lessons with Bernti – we came back to the snow a couple more times before the relationship disintegrated around Christmas of the same year…
Wait with baited breath until the next action packed installment !!
The next trip
November 23, 2009
Filed under Snow fun, Snow news
Tags: Australian snow resorts, first time, Fun in the snow, holiday, Jindabyne, live for the snow, Mount Kosciusko, Perisher Valley, ski holidays, Skiing, Smiggins Hole, snow, Snow fun, snowboarding, Snowy Mountains, Thredbo, winter
The next trip to the snow was with my good friend ‘Ross’ – we’d been away previously together, travelling overseas on sightseeing holidays and on a cruise.. Following my ‘lone’ journey to the snow I returned full of zest and vigor (I wish I had that now!) and it didn’t take long to talk Ross into another trip with me – this time down to the Australian ski fields…
I organised accommodation at the wonderful resort “Ski Rider” hotel at Wilson’s Valley on the Snowy Mountains Highway which runs from Jindabyne up to Charlottes Pass in New South Wales. Charlottes Pass by the way is probably the closest town – (village perhaps) to the highest peak in Australia – Mount Kosciusko – which by world wide standards is really only a ‘pimple’ by comparison – but it’s all we Aussies have so ‘we’ have to make do! You can’t drive to the peak but it’s a relatively easy walk now along well maintained board walks to the top of Australia. The view there is spectacular – it is amazing to see how much snow there really is in this hot and dry country.
Anyway – back to the story – Ross and I arrived at the Ski Rider hotel and into our well appointed room (don’t you believe it!) – I had learned lessons from my previous trip and we had organised our excellent ‘hire’ clothing and skis from a little backyard hire place that used to be operated out of a house in a residential area of Bankstown in Sydney’s western suburbs. From memory – back then – 30 something years ago, this was virtually the ‘only’ place a Sydneysider could go to to hire or purchase Ski gear (sorry – there was no such an animal as a ‘snowboard‘ back then!).
The gear was of the best quality available however waterproof it was not!! The clothing may as well have been constructed of gauze curtain material for all the good it did! However ‘beggars can’t be choosers’ and that’s what we ended up with. We also hired the skis, boots, roof racks and snow chains for the car from the same place – I went there several times later and every time the little garage at the back of the house was ‘chock a block’ full of fellow skiers hiring equipment, back then these people had a gold mine business!
So now we’re in the snow – up to Perisher Valley and decided to forget about any ski lessons – as I said on my previous post ‘they’re for sissys’ – aren’t they? Anyway I was now a seasoned and nearly expert skier after blundering around on the snow for 2 and a half days just a few weeks earlier, there was nothing left for me to learn, surely? – and I could easily pass on all my hard earned experience and knowledge to Ross (who really wasn’t a very ‘sporty’ or co-ordinated person to start with) WRONG!!
We were wet, soggy and bruised by the end of the first day – AND cold! Snow in Australia isn’t known for it’s consistently ‘dry’ quality – it can be – but more often than not its a little on the wet side – spring arrives early generally and it’s common for quite a few ‘spring like’ days to appear throughout the relatively short snow season which officially runs from early June to early October. Although from my experience the decent natural snow really only generally occurs from around end of July to early September – if you’re lucky!
So here we were – the 2nd day of our 5 day sojourn and we made the decision to take ski lessons – well not exactly – we saw and followed a couple of groups of people around who were actually ‘in’ a ski lesson and tried to ‘eavesdrop’ on what they were being asked to do by the instructor – with limited success! After watching the instructor and his pupils we’d go away and try to mimic what he and they were doing; somehow learning a little about skiing along the way!
Amazingly, at the end of our holiday I was actually able to come down a small hill with a modicum of control – only colliding with a couple of other people on the way and generally stopping close to where I intended to!
We left our grand room in the ‘Ski Rider’ and commenced our long drive back to Sydney – I don’t remember alot about that except for being pulled over for speeding somewhere near Goulburn and then being harangued by the Police officer as he thought Ross was not wearing his seatbelt (he actually had been but had taken it off as he looked around to the back of my car watching me speaking with the policeman) Luckily I received a ‘caution’ and we were able to continue without further problem…
On returning home I decided that I wanted to go back again to the snow – though the next time with my ‘own’ equipment and clothing…
Stay in touch for the next exciting installment in “Live for the Snow” !
The 2nd Time
November 18, 2009
Filed under Snow fun, Snow news
Tags: Australian snow resorts, first time, Fun in the snow, holiday, live for the snow, Skiing, snow, Snow fun, snowboarding, winter
After my first trip to the snow with the family as a very young boy it was many years before I managed to return. Our family wasn’t particularly well off and the punishing distance we lived from the Australian Ski fields precluded my parents from taking too many trips down that way. An 8 hour trip back in those days in a well and truly overpacked Volkswagen beetle wasn’t perhaps the best fun for anyone!
Several years later I had a car and my drivers licence. I was at a loose end for a weekend as I had just broken up with my then girlfriend. So without too much thought I decided to take off for the snow. The roads had improved somewhat since the wonderful trip in the VW but it still took me somewhere near 7 hours to travel from the outer Western suburbs of Sydney (Liverpool) down to Wilson Valley inside the Snowy Mountains National Park in southern New South Wales. I hadn’t booked accommodation or thought about clothing – I had just taken off with basically the clothes I was wearing when I had made the decision to go!
I found accommodation at the “Ski Rider” hotel in Wilsons Valley and managed to also hire some (not so) great ski clothing, boots, skis, poles etc from the hire shop there. The next morning I set off from the hotel along the road for the 15 kilometre or so journey further up the hill (that’s what we have in Australia – not mountains as in Northern USA/Canada or Europe!)
I somehow managed to get the ski boots on and snapped into the now antique bindings on the old straight sided skis.
I don’t remember exactly how long I spent out there now – my memory is a little dulled from years of various types of alcohol abuse – but I know I had great fun (I must have as I’ve now spent more than 30 years following the snow!) – I eventually got back to the hotel where I could almost wring out the clothes I had been wearing, they were sopping wet from sitting on my bum most of the day whilst doing my best to remain vertical! My feet were crying – I’m not sure now whether it was from the intense pain of cold/wet feet or from the various pressure points made around them by the (not so) well fitting ski boots – which by the way – could have walked off by themselves that first afternoon as the smell coming from them was truly obnoxious!
After a fairly quiet night at the hotel drowning my sorrows and taking liquid anaesthetic I was out again the next day for my second installment of learning to ski. I was back at the Hotel later that afternoon – just as wet and smelly as the previous day but alot more sore! I had partly managed to remain upright ‘some’ of the time that day and felt I was making progress. I didn’t take lessons (that’s for sissy’s isn’t it!!) and had fumbled my way around the beginners area like the pro I wasn’t!
Regardless of how much pain I was in I had a great weekend. I went home and talked a mate into coming back with me a few weeks later… See the next installment for part 3!! Live for the Snow!
When was your first time?
November 14, 2009
Filed under Snow news
Tags: Australian snow resorts, first time, holiday, live for the snow, ski holidays, Skiing, snow, Snow fun, snowboarding, winter
The first time I experienced snow was in 1964 – I was 6 years old and my parents had taken my 11 yr old brother and I down to the ‘Snowy Mountains’ in Southern New South Wales – Australia. We travelled in Dad’s VW Beetle a distance of about 600 kilometres from our home in the western Suburbs of Sydney- all loaded up with our clothes and travelling paranphenalia.. I remember he had luggage on the roof tied onto a white iron roof rack and that when we arrived in Cooma there was about 1/2″ of ice protruding from the front of the racks! We found our way to a place called Kiandra and there my brother & I slid down the slushy snow on what I now recall looked like plastic restaurant trays… in a short time we both came into the single building with a small fireplace and tried desperately to dry and warm our freezing and sore hands. Later we went to ‘Smiggins Hole’ where we toboganned again on plastic trays, coming flying down a hill which ended at the start of the public carpark. More than once Dad and I (we had been doubling on the trays) flew up the hump and skidded through the cars already parked there – lucky enough not to barrell over some poor skier that was standing about waiting for something down the bottom of the run! Not a great skiing holiday for us but certainly remains in my memory as one which I enjoyed and began my ultimate love of skiing and snow sports! Live for the snow!
Great New Website!
November 14, 2009
Filed under Snow news
Tags: Fun in the snow, Skiing, snow, snowboarding
We’ve just started a Great new Website for all those interested in anything that involves Fun in the Snow. Go to http://www.worldsnowadventurehollidays.com for world wide information concerning skiing, snowboarding, accommodation, weather, mountain statistics, clothing, equipment (the list goes on and on!) – Do yourself a favour and have a look – Great daily deals offered! Regards, Snowadventurer
