Wednesday  10th July.

This morning loomed bright and blue- but no new fresh snow. Marc left early to go to the ski fields and so as I was up I dressed and headed out for my morning walk. Becoming quite proficient at walking in the snow! Did my circuit, took some beautiful photos of frozen lakes and snow and the sky was a funny colour- looked like it was about to snow, but didn’t, so these photos were different from the ones taken yesterday. As part of my circuit I headed down to the toboggan field and the beginners slope here and to my amazement found no one there! I raced home thinking it was too good an opportunity to miss and headed back complete in my snow gear for some fun time on the ice. I wanted to toboggan with Marc but thought that I would not wait for Marc- he was happy skiing and as I did not know how long he would be I decided to do it on my own.

Yes, it was fun, a little lonely but fun. I enjoyed tremendously going down the toboggan slope many times. I learnt how to steer by using my gloved hand on the snow (and realised when I got back how much padding I had lost from that particular glove) .With no new snow, the slope was very icy full of bumps and jagged bits and at times I felt like I was on a horse hitting the saddle many times! But I had the slope to myself for quite a few runs til a few stragglers made their way in…newbies as they were, but even with the slope gathering people I still managed to fly down the slide many more times, clear of pedestrians. There were not many of us at all and went from top to bottom with clear sailing, right to the end…and even off the end at times and over the hill!!! I managed to get up a lot of speed on some runs! Great exercise I might add as going down on the slide was easy- walking back up the hill became more tiring…but I accomplished about just over an hour’s worth on my own before heading back to the cabin. Marc had rung my phone and he was heading home on the lunchtime bus which was great for me!

The afternoon was a quiet one with both of us reading and doing very little, sitting in front of the fire, warm and cosy- just like a holiday is supposed to be I gather….but it was needed after the exertions of the morning’s affairs for both of us. A light dinner, more reading and off to bed we went.

Thursday 11th July

This is our final day here, still bought no new snow, but Marc headed up even earlier…he went with Tony at 7.20am and I was left in bed. I headed out for my routine hours morning walk but due to the lack of sleep I am not having and with the pathway now quite icy, I think my feet did not know where they were going and I managed to slip twice, at different times on the ice, landing very heavily on my rear end and right arm (the same one as I fell on tumbling down the stairs on the first night). This did not add to my cloudy humour of the morning.  Obviously I was a little shaken and upset by the first fall and after the second fall even worse. As the sun was not as warm as yesterday either, I proceeded back to the cabin to commence domestic duties in clean, wash up and start packing things away ready for our departure tomorrow. I had arranged to catch the 11.30am bus up to Mt Hotham to meet Marc, so at least I could see what it looked like and have a visual imagery in front of me…so I did this.

The bus trip was cold but the views were spectacular…however by the time I got there I was already cold…ready to meet my darling husband. But…No Marc! Where was Marc? Obviously not there!

The temperature was much colder than Dinner Plains and so I looked around through the heads of many, many, many people…in fact a continuous throng of people walking or skiing in all sort of directions (so many people) in various colours , different helmets, goggles,  skis, snowboards, and other snow gear coming from all sorts of routes. I headed over to the Hotham central which was across the road from the bus stop and stood waiting…actually I literally began walking from side to side of the steps of the building as the cold began to really settle in my bones constantly scanning the crowd for any glimpse of my beloved husband.

No, no Marc. More waiting. Even more waiting and looking….. More hopping from foot to foot as my toes began to ache. I could not see any sign of Marc and began to think this was a dreadful idea. I sent a text to him letting him know I was here…no answer.

OK, perhaps he has forgotten me…, perhaps forgot I was coming up??? Understandably as he enjoys it and I do not share that feeling as it is something I cannot do.  More waiting, more hopping, more body freezing as my face was getting chillier by the breeze that was rushing around the steps where I was waiting and my toes were now feeling like two blocks of ice and of course I really wished to relieve myself as well!

Twenty five minutes later, I am still waiting and yes by this time, gone is the calm quiet serene woman who accepts most things from her man. Instead I can now feel resentment rising and the tears are forming in my eyes as I leave a crisp message on his phone…” I have been here almost half an hour and I am freezing, where are you?” By this time I am almost ready to board the bus to go down again as I am not impressed at all….in fact I was becoming quite angry. This did not add to the disgruntled humour of my morning with falling twice and then having to wait for my husband to greet me off a bus that came almost 30 minutes ago! As you can gather I was not bemused at all!

But…
Marc eventually arrives and no, you could say clearly I am not in the greatest mood as he explains his lateness to me. Nor was I overly receptive In fact most unusual for me…I was quite cool towards him (in both modes- my emotions and my body temperature) but I shall leave it to him to explain why he was late. Well…what his excuse was anyway! You can make a judgement on that one! (I must add, as I am sitting here writing his now cosy by our warm fire I am starting to cough….probably from a chill caught this morning- Mmmmm!!!) However, the afternoon improved dramatically  and my normal good humour eventually returned along with my body warmth and we went into a hotel to have an apple cider spiked with rum. Of course I had to leave and drink it outside on the icy verandah as it was over crowded. I felt claustrophobic with all the people around me in huge droves

Then we started to walk. Marc showed me Mt Hotham.

Mt Hotham itself is very pretty and quite beautiful in scenery- I gather it would be more scenic once the snow completely covered the mountains but for me, a first time viewer, it was still white and quite magically spectacular. We started weaving our way down from the Hotham central ski fields and headed towards Davenport Village to view where Marc’s cabin that he once owned together with Angie was ( Angie still has it). It was a beautiful snow filled walk which took a good hour or so, but the sun was warm on our faces and it was effortless to walk this countryside. Even though our breathing was more laboured as the altitude was higher, it was still worth the walk. I even unintentionally ventured off track and ended up stuck in snow up to my thigh…of course I was literally stuck accompanied by a few vocal sounds of screams. Once Marc took the historic photograph of me one leg stuck in a gulley in the snow- he assisted me out of my hole. It was hard going- but this time I laughed! We walked all the way down the Davenport Village which is about 3 kms from Mt Hotham Central and took the obligatory photo of Marc outside his (once owned) cabin. At least now I have a visual of this particular place and spot as he talks about Mt Hotham in our conversations.

Back on the bus…at the ‘Big D’ -back to Dinner Plain, back to Rundells hotel for a bowl of hot chips and not one this time but two glasses each of mulled wine…complete with a bystander taking a photograph of us together. I think we deserved it! Sadly a phone call came through on my phone from the midwives at Mullumbimby hospital looking for Marc, which I refused to answer- but Marc himself got caught by the same midwife on his phone when he purchased our wines. This infiltrated into my now pleasant amicable mood as I was not impressed. They know we are supposed to be away- they were informed and this is our time….I share him enough with the hospital. Decision made then and there- I told Marc I have now resolved to answer my phone in future calls when we are away and tell them that nicely ( as much as possible anyway!) But, now the mood is light and bright, and we are sitting in front of the fire…toasty, warm, snug and content. Definitely feeling different from the unpleasant morning I had had!

 Marc’s turn:

The original purpose of this trip was to regain some ski-time after a 6 ½ year hiatus from the sport before going to Europe in winter. Lyndell suggested, and I am glad she did, that she tag along since it was better than staying home quite alone for five days. Therefore, the trip became more of time away for both of us rather than just about the skiing.

Back to the original purpose, me relearning how to ski: The first day was messy but with some guidance from our friend’s from Brunswick plus a couple of days of practice, today I was pleased to hear from Tony that I had seemed to have mastered short turns – for the non-skier, short turns are a series of quickly placed carving turns designed to get the skier down steep-ish narrow runs where there is not the room to place the more graceful slow gentle sweeping turns more usually seen on groomed slopes.

I must have impressed him enough with my gain over the last three days of skiing that for my final run of the day before meeting Lyndell he suggested with his friends that we walk over and do “Mary’s Slide.” He said that there was enough time before I was due to meet her to complete the loop. For those who do not know Hotham, “Mary’s Slide” is a double black (most difficult) ski run over in the “Extreme Area”. That part is not currently serviced by lifts at this time of the year so we had to walk over and up to it carrying all our gear. Once there, time was required to regain our breath – not a problem for Tony since he has been at this altitude for a few weeks already. Of course, this also gave me time to read the sign at the top reminding skiers that the resort accepts no responsibility for skiing in this area and the skiers do so at their own risk.

The cold air had brought out a bit of asthma in me but I caught my breath, said I was not going to be the last down since someone needed to follow me to pick up any pieces and over the edge I went. I managed the first 2/3 of the descent quite well but then the valley narrowed and the going got tough! One of my fellow skiers fell and I lost concentration for a split second losing a ski in the process. I was able to easily regain same and then cheated in the last narrowest part (<3m wide) descent by side-slipping.

The final part back to the lifts is a narrow (<1m wide) trail that traverses along the side of a creek at times using small bridges to cross intervening ravines. It was on one of the latter that I came unstuck. I had come around a corner a little fast, swung up the slope to lose the speed, swung back on to the path only to find the snow covered path at this point was a short bridge. One ski shot under the bridge wedging itself, my body sprawled onto the bridge and the second ski shot off over the bridge and landed submerged in a creek 4m below me. Nothing for it, I had to climb down into the knee deep snow and carefully descend the steep slope into the creek. The creek banks were too steep to walk along so I had to walk in the water down the creek to where my ski was. I found out that ski boots leak as soon as the water is up to your ankle. I thought, well I could cope with a little water seeping in. But then, I discovered my ski was in a part of the creek where the water was so deep it just came over the top of the boots filling them both up with freezing water. I then had to climb back up the bank using my ski as an ice pole to help haul myself, now heavier with water filled boots, up onto the track. Tony was there to help with the final haul, literally, back on to something resembling horizontal. By this point he realises he missed a great photo opportunity. He was also incredulous in understanding how I had ended up in the creek without having actually fallen in.

Anyway, I skied the rest of the way back to the lifts with sodden cold feet, caught the lift up to where Lyndell was waiting, the lift stopped three times on my way up. I get to the top at 12:20 (25 minutes late from our agreed meeting time) to be met by a cold shoulder only fractionally warmer than my feet since I had kept her waiting. My explanation did not really seem to make much of an impression on her but she had thawed appreciably by the time I had returned from the bathroom having taken my boots off, drained the water from them and wrung the cold water out of my socks. Definitely we were back to our usual cheerful selves once we had started out walk around Hotham and down to Davenport.

So the 5 days has been a success. We had some time away. We had the opportunity to test our choices of cold weather gear for Europe at the end of the year. I regained some of my skiing skills. Lyndell perfected her tobogganing skills. We had time together and only one phone call from the hospital. Overall a success and I am glad we did it!

Friday 12^th July,

My birthday! No fresh snow again but still a beautiful paradise of snow around me. Marc stayed in bed with me this morning as there was no rush to the snowfield because we have to be out of the cabin by 10am. A leisurely breakfast, hot shower and a walk to the accomdation place to hand back the key. The next hour of waiting was spent at Rundells outdoor area drinking real coffee and sitting in the sun, surrounded by snow. So the  highlights of the trip:

Marc: Snow falling on the first day, seeing snow in Lyndell’s hair…happy excited face as the snow fell. Walks ,quiet times together, two memorable aspects of skiing was being able to confidently go over  ‘The cornice” without fear , being willing to take on “Mary’s slide” including memorable traverse back through the water….and the reception from ‘Lyndell’.

Lyndell: Snow falling on the first day definitely…making a snow woman…something never done before…getting the tobogganing down pat….and having a great time whilst doing it!  My morning walks around Dinner plains..soaking in the ambiance of the snow and the fresh clean area and the cold….most importantly  treasured time spent with Marc!

 A wonderful time!!!