Skiing weekend

Cold up top
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Candice must have felt very sorry for me hitting 30 because she put on the best birthday weekend I'd had in, well, 30 years. It all began at a Spanish restaurant on Liverpool Street, a dinner for two. Or so I thought. When we walked up to the top floor there were 15 or so surprise guests. It was a great evening. And it got better when Candice gave me a card that revealed we were to go skiing that weekend. Just what I always wanted.

If you're like me you probably had no idea you could even go skiing in Australia. It's not exactly in the top five things you think of, edged out be beaches, beers, sport, koalas and Neighbours. But just five hours from Sydney lie the Snowy Mountains. We were going to Perisher, the largest ski resort in the country. Yeeha.

We headed to the mountain restaurant for a much-needed hot dog and beer. Even in ski resorts the Aussies put on a good barbie.

Fuel stop.
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There was some debate whether the '87 Holden Apollo would make it, but Candice had recruited Rob and Rich to come along, and Rich is the proud owner of a badboymobile that showed much more pomise of negotiating the journey. So all aboard, we set off after work on Friday night and cruised past Canberra, Cooma and onto Jindabyne, where we staying for the weekend.

It's a half hour drive to the slopes, so we were up and out early the next morning. Perisher is more rolling hills than mountains, but promised 46 lifts and several peaks. Candice and Rich went off to their lesson in Blue Cow while Rob and I caught the first lift up.

Rich's hat
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And what a pleasure it was to be back on the slopes, and back on the board. Blues skies, 120cm base snow and some fresh stuff on top. After a good morning we headed to the mountain restaurant for a much-needed hot dog and beer. Even in ski resorts the Aussies put on a good barbie.

After the afternoon skiing together, we headed back to Jindabyne for dinner and the obligatory apres ski. The drinking games came out after birthday cake, including a very confusing game of spoof. We'd been put in touch with a seasonaire by a friend in Sydney, who'd recommended a bar with a club attached called Banjo Patersons. We figured you can't go wrong with a name like that. It was a messy night indeed.

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Needless to say the next morning was a struggle, but there's no better hangover cure than hitting the slopes, and we were back on skis/boards in no time. We called it a day at around 3.30 and headed back to Sydney, drunk with mountain air and perhaps a bit of residual sambuca from the night before, having had a great - and very un-Australian - weekend.