May 7th, 2008
Ski Sunday (…Dun da da dun da da dun da da, da-da-da)
When asked, “Where shall we go skiing this year, dahling?” people don’t often reply “The Snowy’s, Australia”. In fact we didn’t know of this place until we were almost upon it, I think it’s pretty unheard of in European circles. Sydney-siders come down here if they don’t make the jump across to New Zealand. We were here because, well, we were here; just passing through. The Snowy Mountains are in fact home to drum role please… Australia’s highest mountain; Mount Kosciuszko which stands at 2229m. Not bad considering Australia is the flattest continent in the world. This are is also famous for a traditional Australian poem called ‘The Man from Snowy River’ that everyone seems to know from birth. So to come across this cutesy ski resort, Thredbo Alpine Resort, was a bit of a bonus I suppose. (Editor’s note: I do apologise… Threadbo is one of Australia’s MAJOR ski resorts and should apparently not be referred to as ‘cutesy’… but it is).
When we arrived it was pretty dead. This was not high season. So we were excited to find out that one of the chairlifts was open and that we could take a ride up to the top of the mountain. I think we were more excited about the prospect of seeing our first bit of Australian snow to be sure it did actually fall here. We paid our fare, wrapped ourselves up in all our winter gear (we weren’t kidding ourselves) and hopped on. And thank God we took precautions, because doo-lally it was cold and windy up there. At the top there was a good splattering of the white stuff, though not enough for a slippery slide, so we made do with soggy snowballs.
On arrival at the top, the chairlift man said he had to shut the lift for a few minutes for a safety check or something or other. But as it was so chilly we didn’t really wait for him to finish his sentence and were on our way walking back down the mountain to warm ourselves up instead, this was not a place to just stand and wait. It was the place to have a snowball fight though. With pre-packed sandwich, satsuma and crisps in hand we plodded our way down the green pistes passing some rather nice ski-in-ski-out apartments and the apres-ski bar and concluded that this wouldn’t actually be a bad place to come for a bit of winter fun. Even their piste maps look reassuringly familiar, and gives the impression that this place buzzes in season.
The excitement wasn’t over at this point either. We then stumbled upon a dry luge; I don’t think I’ve been on one of these since… oooh, just back in Vietnam with Dad when he nearly crashed in to the back of us!!! Hahahaha! So we couldn’t resist a few goes on this one too. Given we’d seen pretty much no-one on our jaunt up the mountain and back we were surprised to find a bunch of very trendy, but very well-behaved, school kids also taking their turn. We queued up and whizzed our way down and after several screams had to drag ourselves away.
There were still a good few Ks to make before Tom Groggin campsite by the river (a lot of places are named after people, though I don’t know what this particular guy did. It’s near Dead Horse Gap, so maybe that’s got something to do with it?). Now, there’s an unwritten rule in Australia that says you should be as helpful as possible and offer tips at every opportunity. As we were leaving Threadbo the perfect opportunity came for an ozzie guy to tell us to take care not to hit a kangaroo on the way given dusk was approaching. Well, of course. However, elsewhere in Australia the little fellas hadn’t come out until it was pretty much dark and we were still being bathed in a dappled sunlight so we thought the roads would be clear. But as we drove down the windy road and pulled in to our river-side site there were hundreds of them, clear to see and out and about enjoying the last of the daylight.
Tomorrow, as the kangaroos retire in to the bush, we’ll hop a different border.