Skiing Falls Creek!!!

Just came back from an amazing week away skiing!!!

Drove down with Jon on Tuesday all the way to Albury! We left at around 6:30am and arrived in Albury around 12:30pm! We grabbed some Hungry Jacks and then went to Safeways (country equivalent of Woolies) to stock up for our self-catered trip to the snow!!!

Around 1:30pm we headed across the border into Victoria and drove an hour or so to Mount Beauty, at the foot of the Victorian alps! It was raining pretty hard but we were hoping that this meant it was snowing up in the mountains.

At Mt Beauty we hopped on a coach that took us up to Falls creek! Along the way up it was amazing seeing the landscape gradually becoming more and more white! It was almost surreal as it started snowing and it felt like we had entered another world like Narnia or something! About halfway up, we encountered a roadblock as a truck had skidded off the road! Good thing we didn't drive up ourselves!

Eventually we reached Falls Creek! We caught the oversnow taxi to our accommodation at Alpha Lodge! Maureen the manager checked us in and gave us a tour of the cosy lodge! We unpacked and enjoyed some of mum's prepacked curry lamb for dinner!

We got up early on Wednesday for our first day of skiing!!! The sun was streaming down and the conditions looked awesome! We trudged through fantastic powdery white snow a few doors down to Viking Ski Hire and picked up our pre-booked skis, poles and boots! Then we hopped on the village shuttle to the main ski lifts where we bought our beginners lift pass!

There were heaps of people there despite the NSW and Vic school holidays being over. We later found out that it was SA's school holidays and alot of people were from Adelaide.

At the top of the ski lift - Cloud 9 - we found our way to the first timers meeting point and met our instructor Lynnea, an American girl. We joined a group of about 10 other first timers and off we went for our first lesson in skiing 101! We learnt the basics of putting on skis and posture before learning how to stop using a snowplough!

After our lesson, we were left to our own devices and feeling confident, we had a go at a scenic beginner's run called Wombat's Ramble! It was rather interesting snowploughing all the way down!!! I'm pretty sure we fell over a couple of times but we made it to the bottom!

We returned to our lodge by the free shuttle and after lunch, went down Wombat's Ramble around 4 times! By the end of the day, we felt pretty good about picking up skiing so quickly!

We got up a little later on Thursday to discover it was snowing quite heavily! We decided not to wait for the shuttle and try and ski down to the chair lifts. Boy was that a mistake! The slopes down to the lifts were somewhat steeper and narrower than Wombat's Ramble and we found our snowploughs didn't really cut it! Not only that, but we took a wrong turn and ended up at the oversnow terminal rather than the chairlifts!

Eventually we made it to the lifts and this time got on with our skis on rather than carrying our skis like the day before. As we ascended the mountain, it gradually became clear that that day was going to be anything but clear!!! We reached the top to find ourselves in not so much as a winter wonderland as a wintry hell!!! There was a strong blizzard and we had to fight the wind just to get off the lift! At one point I thought Jon was going to get blown off the mountain!!! The wind cut through our clothing like a knife and chilled us to the very bone! We eventually sought refuge behind a big sign before deciding to skip that morning's lesson and go for a coffee in the Cloud 9 cafe!

Inside it was so nice and warm! And we definitely weren't the only ones there! We grabbed mochas to thaw ourselves whilst waiting for the horrendous weather outside to settle.

It didn't!

We ended up skiing down Wombat's and heading to the Village Bowl to try another part of the mountain. There the conditions were somewhat better. There was a rather tame looking intermediate slope there that we thought we could handle so off we went on Final Muster! Man that was mistake!!! Halfway down we found ourselves facing a steep narrow section and both of us ended up falling on our sides whilst other people skiied by! To add insult to injury, the chairlift ran overhead pretty much and I'm sure I could hear people laughing at us!!! =P

Some nice people eventually came along and guided us down that section and we got to the bottom with sheepish grins on our faces! We weren't going to attempt that one again anytime soon!

Feeling out of our depth once more, we grabbed lunch at Max's Cafe before heading back up to Cloud 9 for an afternoon lesson. We skipped to a level 3 lesson and met another American instructor called Terry! He was an awesome tutor! We started by going down Wombat's Ramble together and we started learning basic Christie turns and how to ski parallel. Then we had a go down Drover's Dream, another green run. After the lesson we had 2 more gos down Drover's dream and 2 down Wombat's Ramble to practise our new skills! It was nice to return to the lodge that evening though and we enjoyed lasagna for dinner and then a game of Starcraft!

Friday was our last day there and we had to check out before hitting the slopes. It was another perfect day like Wednesday and we had another level 3 lesson in the morning. After lunch at Wombat's Cafe, we had a few goes at Drover's Dream before attempting some blue runs called Highway 83 and Main Street! Jon was more thrill seeking than me and attempted some other blue runs! By the end of our last day there, we felt pretty confident skiing parallel and I came away with no injuries!!!

We boarded the 5pm bus back to Mt Beauty and then drove back to Albury relishing the amazing time we had! It was a great time of just hanging out with Jon and we're looking forward to our next adventure on the ski slopes!