Skiing, Mount Perisher, NSW, Oz
When I first heard of skiing in Australia, I laughed. It is a peculiar notion that the world’s largest barbeque should have a cool area let alone an entire mountainous resort. But it does. The area known as the Snowy Mountains is located 200km west of Canberra in the state of New South Wales. It was only a six hour drive from Sydney! Not much of a deal to the Wallabies but quite the ride for us!!
The journey was broken up by a stop over in “The Nations Capitol”, Canberra. It was very reminiscent of Milton Keynes or a purpose built city such as those designed in the hay day of the USSR. It had clean, wide streets with ample parking in every location you would ever need. The city map itself looked more like a uniform bubble, or a cul-de-sac, than that of a bustling metropolis. The reason for this is that it was purpose built, as the new capitol of Australia, around the old colonial buildings that once dominated the hilly landscape. The purpose was purely to house the government and it’s related departments – you can imagine how fun it appeared. Unfortunately it was a flying stop and so we could not argue against these initial conclusions but the city did not leave us with a feeling for returning to explore a bit more. The government rooms below:
We stayed in Jindabyne, a quiet, small resort with an alpine edge located on a lake. It was stunning but lacked decent eateries. But this trip was not about the food – it was about the snow. We arrived late on Thursday night and so did not see any snow. And when we awoke on Friday again saw no snow. Not the most inspiring start especially as it was the end of the ski season. However a half an hour drive to the chosen pinnacle, Mt Perisher, and we were surrounded by white peaks.
The ski area itself was extensive and all lifts were open which was great news. We started slow for the first minute and a half just to get our ski feet back and then we were full throttle for the whole trip!
We were shattered every night so the après ski stories are limited however we did attend the National Ski Bunnies Contest 2007. A good show but it was hard to pay attention with a mountain outside just waiting to be used!
Towards the end of the trip we were jumping this way and that and doing grinds down the snow park on ramps and ledges.
There were a number of times I landed on my face which was impressive. The only shame was that it ended too soon. As it was the end of the season we could not go back the following break and so will have to wait for next year. It was awesome!
