Thursday was one of those 'longest days of your life' experience. Up at 4:15am, fly to Melb, bus to Hotham, settle in, out for dinner, out for drinks.... FINALLY crawled into bed about midnight. I was such a broken man after such a tiring day, but that had nothing on how I felt about 5pm Friday!!
Day one of boarding and I realised just how crap you get when you don't continue to do a sport... stiff, rigid -- "BEND YOUR KNEE'S!!" -- And still feeling like crap, I was pretty low in motivation. But none-the-less it was great to be on the snow and not sitting in front of a computer at work (like I am now!). Had a crack at a few of the boxes in the rail park, and did pretty well smashing myself up - bruises etc. still hanging around about a week later!!
Justin's friends Amy, Troy and Claire where coming up Friday night, and I was going to be staying with them at their lodge. Unfortunately they weren't arriing till like 11pm, so we just HAD to go out and have some drinks while we waited.
Friday night was also the rail comp outside SWNDLRS (Swindlers) - the main bar at Hotham Central. So we camped out there for a while and watched these crazy buggers doing some insane tricks!!
The Rail Park from several floors up - with a great glass of red, thanks George!!
So wrecked that we even squeezed in a quick shut-eye before the guys arrived. Collected up all my gear and moved it all down to the lodge - Marouka, near Jack Frost's. Then we stayed up till 2am drinking wine... how very sophisticated of us!
Slow start to Saturday's riding, but on the slopes by about 9am. Very stiff from the first day's riding, and maybe just a tad hung over.. but made the most of it.
Here's the view up to central Hotham lodges from the Village chairlift - Where the hell is all the snow??? Yes, there are supposed to be runs here under the lift!
Me on the lift - once again, no snow to be seen on this side of the mountain.
Makes sense about here I guess to show you the Hotham Trail Map, I have highlighted in orange the runs that were open an rideable. To the left of the Heavenly Valley chair are some black runs highlighted in blue - these were open to advanced riders/skiers only and in really poor nick, but yes, still open... as you can see, practically NONE of the mountain was open... SOOO many runs, and NO snow. Disappointing, but hey - still had fun
The dusk view from my lodge - Marouka.
Saturday night was another large night on the wine back at the lodge playing cards, then went out to Swndlrs again. Sunday was hence a very slow start, but ended up being a great day - spent most of the afternoon riding with some random chick I met on the lift. Didn't see her again at all after that, but having a riding partner for the arvo really perked me up a bit. Early night on Sunday - probably the smartest thing I did for the entire trip!
Up reasonably early Monday for a quick ride before a lesson at 10am. Refined my turns and learnt a few basic freestyle tricks which led to an awesome afternoon of riding. Soo much confidence after the lesson that I was carving up the mountain and pulling 180 jumps of the mogully bumps all over the place - it was NUTS!!
Here's me going fully sik off a jump during that first lesson - check out the gorgeous sunny day. No wonder there was no snow!!
Monday was clearly the best day out of the entire trip, and this was capped off by the Hilltop Hoods playing at Swndlrs - thanks Jus for organising tickets ages ago - they were sold out atleast a month before the event!! Jus, Tom (random Pommy Intructor) and I rocked up well early and made sure we had poll position in the mosh. Jus and I were centre-front the ENTIRE night - it was INSANE!!!!!
Local DJ support, warming up the crowd
Mystro - the main support act from the U.K.
This dude was
MAD!!
Crowd shot - Me, Jus and Candy(the chick with the Jaffa necklace), plus a bunch of randoms
Just the two of us
The Boyz from Adelaide -
" one in a mil' "
Heavenly Hilltop
The boys didn't stop playing till about 1:30am, by which time I was saturated from head to toe. The security guards in front of us had been giving us water all night and i think we wore more than we drank! Good though as the crowd was packed soo tight that we almost got pushed onto the stage many times during the night. Some punk behind me kept being a total wanker, so he copped a well placed elbow at one point, take that for Karma biatch!!
From all accounts the next day, it was the BIGGEST night on the mountain all season - and you could really tell, soo many of the staff just looked like crap on Tuesday morning. Didn't stop me though, forced myself up early and on the slopes at open (8:30am - earliest start for me all trip) as I wanted to get as much out of the day as possible before getting on the bus and leaving at 5pm.
Gave up about 3pm, headed back to the lodge to shower and clean up. Had a quick drink with Jus before jumping on the bus for the trip back down to Melb. Arrived at the Virgin terminal about 10:15pm and found myself on of those 4 seater lounge things. Set myself up there and read my book till about 1:30am when the final planes had landed and everyone had left. Curled up and got about 2 hours sleep. Checked my bags in about 5am and then went hunting for coffee. With all that time on the bus, in the airport and on the plane I actually finished the book I was reading as I touched down in Hobart at 9:30am Wednesday (which still felt like Tuesday due to lack of sleep). Headed home for quick shower, and then I was at work by about 10:30am... what a trip!!
P.S.
The book I was reading, "Over the Edge" by Greg Child {
Amazon|
Ebook}, is an AMAZING tale of the four American climbers that were taken hostage in Krygyzstan in August 2000 by Islamic extremists... A perfect mix of history, suspense, action and reality - I recommend the EVERYONE should read this book. Trust me, it's worth it!
