Phil and I just arrived home from our first real Aussie vacation. We left Forbes on Saturday morning and stopped in Canberra to have a nice vegetarian lunch with Anne Joselin. Our night was spent in a small town called Cooma where the small parking spaces and pink kettles were impossible to understand.
On Sunday morning we visited a few shops in Cooma and managed to score a decent deal on a new board for Phil as well as a snowboard bag for both of us. After a short drive, we arrived in Koziusko National Park. The weather was dreary. Rainy. Windy. 5 degrees. We paid our entry fee and proceeded to Thredbo village. If we thought the parking spots in Cooma were bad, we didn’t know what to make of Thredbo. Phil did an amazing job weaving our monster truck through the narrow roadways. We could see the hill looking very patchy as the snow started to melt with the heavy rain (100mm in 48 hours) and thunder. As it turned out, the torrential rain flooded the room we were supposed to be in so we were upgraded to an apartment. Sweet.
Despite the rain, we suited up and headed to the hill to try get a couple runs in. Unfortunately the lifts had already stopped for the afternoon so we walked partway up the hill and rode down. The snow was crusty and slushy but it was better than nothing. Fortunately Thredbo had a bumper year for snow (300cm) so the rain didn’t have much of an effect.
Monday morning dawned clear with a light smattering of snow. We were up early and headed to the hill first thing. We had a great day of riding although it took some time to adjust to the transitional snow conditions from the top to the bottom of the hill. At the bottom of the lifts it was warm and slushy with bare spots while the winds were gusting and snow was flying at the top. Riding the chairlift one could experience all four seasons in a matter of minutes as rain turned to sleet and finally to snow. I took a number of snowboarding lessons during the week which were excellent and allowed me to finally develop some skills. We didn’t receive much snow during the week, but the weather held out and allowed us to enjoy four full days of riding.
Our evenings were pretty quiet as Thredbo Village didn’t have much of a nightlife. Food was incredibly expensive and we tried out a number of restaurants, including a German place where a brushtail possum made an appearance while we dined.
The amount of Canadiana around the village was staggering. From ski-doos at the hill to Corner Gas on the television to Kokanee at the pubs and BC travel propaganda everywhere, we almost felt at home.
The landscape was quite spectacular with swollen rivers running through the village and snowgums dotting the hill. In summer hiking and mountain biking is popular in the park and we hope to go back soon.
On Friday, Phil got a quick freestyle lesson in while I packed up and checked out of the hotel. We left the village at noon and headed to Perisher Valley to see one of the other resorts in the area. After having lunch at the valley we continued on our way to Jindabyne where we checked out the man-made lake that was part of the massive Snowy Mounains hydro scheme and laughed at the requirement for tire chains for all non-four wheel drive vehicles while in the park.
We spent the night in Jindy and then headed to Canberra early on Saturday morning for more shopping and frustration with parking a big vehicle in small parking spaces. We were back in Forbes by early evening after only one small encounter with kangaroos on the dark roads.
And now, for a change of pace, I’m off to Cairns for a week of training in the sun and heat of tropical northern Queensland.
