Welcome to my regales of  our few days away last week at Mt Hotham… It is written in journal style, so bear with me and I will try not to bore you if you read to the end!

Day one: Sunday 7th  July.

Well…our first day at the snow! It is amazing…..Marc has at the present gone skiing and I have come back from a two and half hour walk around Dinner Plains….but I am now ahead of myself…so much has happened before we even got here!!!!

So let me start my story at the very beginning!

Yesterday was our day of travelling and quite a long day. We were up at 4.30am because Mt Hotham is in Victoria for those that do not know that….(and interesting the attendant at Gold Coast Airport and the attendant at the Sydney Airport had not heard of it at all!). It is actually three hours from Melbourne by car….. It is not small, not large but quite unique…not as large as the Perisher/Thredbo snow resorts in NSW – but more confined, petite and extremely pretty.

So…arrival at our airport at 6.15 am to find that our plane to Sydney had been delayed for 3 hours.  It was supposed to leave at 7.30am but was now delayed ‘til 10.30 am. That is actually quite a long delay, I might say and I was not impressed at all, but there were also panic stations, as we would not now meet the connecting flight to Mt Hotham, which only operates once on Sundays (three times total per week). It meant that our four days away might now be cancelled! At the time I did not know that! So, after explaining our dilemma, we were detoured to an extremely bored looking and unfriendly Jet star attendant who gave us our seats on a plane which would hopefully meet the connecting plane! Oh Yes that’s right – JETSTAR! Need I say anymore!

(I must mention that I have never travelled with Jetstar but everyone I know who has travelled has always had problems, so I guess today for me was not an exception! They also did not put bags through – even though we were on a connecting Qantas flight…as “they are a budget service and did not have enough staff”…Interesting, I pay exactly the same amount for the seats with Virgin and get quality service but I digress, so moving on.)

This bored, non-smiling attendant gave us new seats on a different plane 30minutes later than our own scheduled one. We waited for the plane to board, but you guessed it, the plane was late leaving by 15minutes. How unusual! Arrival into Sydney meant that we raced around to the baggage collection carousel, and of course another delay. Two planes luggage had not been unloaded before ours! By this time, I was hopping from foot to foot, yes due to adrenalin rushing through my veins but also due to the fact I desperately needed to use the bathroom but could not leave! I am sure you can imagine the picture!  We waited and waited and watched two flights of bags come out…oh so slowly. I am sure that the staff must have had a coffee break and had their ‘wee’ break which I really needed to do as well!  Do you know that it took almost 15 minutes for the bags to come out from our flight? Round and round and round we go…eventually the bag arrives and we raced upstairs again to the busy check-in where we were met by an attendant who again did not know where the place was….booked our seats and headed around to the boarding gate.

Yes- we made it!

By this time, nerves had settled, my bladder had stopped crunching, my insides were starting to settle and we both just sat down only to hear the words “Flight 2237 to Mt Hotham now boarding”. Boy that was close! Excited that we were now in the last leg, onto the plane we walked! To our surprise we had been given separate seats….away from each other-completely different aisles!! Try and figure that one out considering we had checked in together, had the same last name, same destinations, and now allocated different seats?? However, the single attendant on the small plane was lovely and swapped us. We settled into the 1 ½ hour flight to Mt Hotham airport.

Touchdown! Arrival at Dinner Plains!

Cold! Freezing!

And Snow!  It was actually falling!

I have to admit, I was like a little girl looking at the snow falling in front of me as I hopped again from foot to foot but this time due to the freezing conditions falling on me! but so exciting!  Headed to our cabin and the snow was coming down even more and settling on my hair and my clothes- an unbelievable experience…do you know though snow is actually wet and cold! Yes that sounds quite blonde type dumb- but when you touch it and as it falls on you, snow is firm, but then it changes to ‘wet’. My hair was wet so much that  by the time we got inside I was actually very, very cold! I looked like a drowned cat! But undeterred we headed outside again to peruse the local shops and settings.

Lee and Tony from Mitre 10 at Mullumbimby were here as well (they spend the whole season down here) Their house is so warm and we were given a liqueur welcome drink called ‘Geigermeister’ which were in ice glasses- actually ICE glasses and you had to drink it in one hit, and then throw the glasses into the sink! Yes- definitely warmed me right up!  They come here for 10 weeks every year and have their own cabin…they also have all sorts of gear and most generously gave us some snow gear to borrow! The rest we hired …..another story!

Dinner cooked by Marc, hot showers, yes it was cold in the cabin but with the fire lit…we basked in the glow of romantic firelight on our first night. Bed-as I guess 16 hours of being upright was enough for one day!    Day two on its way…….