It's Always Snowing Somewhere

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Carissa and I have recently returned from 3 months living and working in the beautiful snowy mountains. The answer is yes- it really was as fun as it sounds. The snow was fantastic and there was never any shortage of folk coming down to visit and take advantage of the free couch. Our lovely flatmate Jen was very gracious in accommodating all our couch-surfing friends.
Carissa worked at the Thredbo Pharmacy where sunscreen, crutches, Dencorub and knee braces were the order of the day. I worked in hospitality for a resort owned by Perisher which meant a free season pass. Carissa worked a 3 day on 3 day off rotating roster while I worked the breakfast and dinner shifts, which meant plenty of time was available to us to get up the hill and get our ski on.
With all this time up on the hill there were no more excuses for not pushing ourselves... I have long been at Carissa to try snowboarding and Carissa has long been at me to give skiing a go. So thanks to a little help from our friends (Thanks Azza, Fia & Maddie) we both managed to become quite competent by the end of the season at our new found snowsports. Of course as is often the case, I may have over-exaggerated my abilities to the point where I thought I might even try hitting some of the rails etc on the skis... it still hurts to sit down three weeks on from my encounter with one of the rails in particular. I am, however, a convert and am planning to get hold of my own pair of twin tip skis in addition to the board.
Wednesday is payday in Jindabyne which meant Wednesday nights were always popular with the locals. We often wandered up to Banjo's for a drink and to share war stories with many of the other seasonal crew with whom we had befriended.
A particular stand out of the season was the annual Pub to Pub Classic which is a cross country ski race requiring participants to dress up and, as the name suggests, race a circuit without the aid of ski lifts. A drink at each pub on the way is mandatory for all participants. The leaders complete the circuit flat out in just under 40 minutes however the rest of the stragglers it seems may have followed the rules a little too closely, with many of the participants not finishing til dark or not at all.
Needless to say, despite not having cross country skis we still made the effort to dress up and get in the spirit of things. We had a fantastic day hanging out with our mate Dan (Batman) and cheering on all the participants in the race.
It is fair to say that we have both been bitten by the snow bug and hopefully will have a chance to get back on the snow before too long.

Until next time, Hoo Roo

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