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Published: October 5th 2009
So September came and with around 3 weeks to go the weather changed from winter to spring and then the fun really began!
The hotel quietened down to around 50% occupancy so we had less shifts which meant more free time. The temperature really picked up and with the new relaxed atmosphere around the place due to there being less guests and the end being in sight, so did the partying!
Our wonderful flatmate Pru invited us along to her parents house in the Hunter Vally for a music festival in the vineyards, Bimbadgen. This was a top weekend, thanks to Pru's dad scoring backstage VIP tickets for us all, we had a full on freebie day mixing with the bands with endless Coronas, wine and food thrown in. Now we hadn't heard of any of the bands but there were some top acts there.
When people started going wild (in the cheap seats in front of the stage haha) and those lucky few who did make it backstage came hunting for pictures and autographs with people around our table, we thought we'd better join in so got ourselves snapped with a few of the stars as well,
just for good measure 😊 A big thanks to Stuart, Robyn and Pru for making us feel so welcome that weekend in their amazing home, overlooking the Hunter!
Meanwhile back at Skirider the BBQ season really picked up and we'd head down the hill to a great BBQ spot on the Thredbo river at any opportunity. One day all of the lads decided a rope swing next to the river looked like a good idea after a few beers so before you know it they were all in the river although not for long seen as it was around 5 degrees! One thing worth mentioning is the crazy magpies that literally guard this stretch of river as most of us found out at one point or another, especially Steve who took a direct hit to the side of the head when he wasn't looking which nearly knocked him over haha.
Towards the end we all went to Canberra for the annual staff paint balling day out. Neither of us had done this before and Maja and the girls were a bit apprehensive but a top day was had by all, we've both still got the bruises to prove
The Skirider girls.
Maja, Sarah, Tash and Pruit! Afterwards we had a bar crawl all the way back to Skirier which involved a beer in all of about 9 pubs, some of them really strange little pubs in tiny villages. The rest is a bit hazy for us both.
During the final week at the hotel we were back up to capacity again with 4 different school groups. This was bad timing seen as there was a massive night of partying to be had almost every night. Generally this would involve a few quiet drinks until the last guests left the bar after which the madness started. There were some questionable service skills to answer for on the mornings that followed!
Then on Friday the 25th of September the last guests departed and it was time for the staff party. A bus was picking us up at 4.30 to take us to the Wild Brumby, an Austrian themed bar around an hour away from the hotel. The fancy dress theme for the night (of course!) was cupboard party. Basically whatever you could lay your hands on from the big fancy dress cupboards. Someone had an idea to go as smart as possible, hence the photo's
Steve and Luke
In lovely blazers look like some kind of strange 80's wedding bash.
The night was one of the best, we even had Bruno, our very own Austrian squeeze box player at the restaurant. Afterwards we all went back to the bar and helped ourselves to the leftover booze between games of beer pong. We eventually turned in at around 5am and couldn't believe it the next day when at around 1pm went over for lunch only to find the party was still pumping. Well pumping's a bit strong, people were crashed out all over the place with a one or two still going strong. This continued until the night time.
The following day we both worked a huge shift in skihire, packing and cleaning the place in order to shut down until next season. On the Monday, after some emotional goodbyes we finally left the hotel for the last time and got the bus back to Sydney where we chilled out for a couple of days in our old stomping ground of Glebe and looked forward to the next leg of our adventure.
In a way it was really strange saying goodbye to Australia. When we fist arrived its fair
to say we weren't massively impressed. But boy did this change! The thing about Australia is that its so insulated from the rest of the world so that when your here its difficult to keep tabs on whats happening elsewhere. People generally aren't interested and at first this comes across as strange, but after living and working so closely with people here it kind of starts to make sense in that this place is out on its own, with its own sports ad culture etc, far away from any other "western" country.
I guess the thing i'm getting at is that when your in Australia you don't hear much about anywhere else in the world, and to begin with that was really disconcerting. But in fact the sad thing is when you leave Australia, you rarely hear anything about Australia, the place that we've grown to love and feel at home in over the last 5 months or so.
In summing up our time in the snow, well we'll take a name from one of our favorite ski runs at Perisher, the Rollercoaster. From extreme highs to extreme lows to extreme highs and so on. We've had the
maddest baddest sickest sweetest craziest funniest time and we wouldn't change it for the world! We've made lifelong friends and we can safely say that we'll definitely be back to this amazing country Down Under to see you all again!
Love Steve and Maja x
(from a beach somewhere in Thailand, far far away from the snow....)
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Anna
non-member comment
Oh my god, I actually nearly shed a tear at that ending! Maja you'd be a good writer, could you do me a novel please :) Good to hear you had a fab time and made some great friends :) not long till you're back home and we're all beefing our eyes out cause we havent seen you forever and a day (more like devo'd you've come back) only kidding :) lol hope you have a great time on the last leg of your journey, see you in 25 days! Best save some of those fancy dress outfits for my halloween party! x x x