What a glorious day to finish off our week in the snow. The sun was shining and there were some good groomed runs but the snow was softening fast. The wind is starting to pick up and I believe the weather is rotten back in Adelaide with strong northerly winds. I guess we will get this as we head west.

We are due to leave around 4pm, so I decided to pack it in at lunchtime as there is a little thing of a 12 hour drive through the night as Rachael has the Festival Choir Saturday afternoon. She should sleep through the night as we travel. I get to sleep when we get home tomorrow.

Not much in the way of photos today but there is the combined GPS tracks for the week. Todays total was 26km for the morning.

Today we woke up to sunshine. This meant one thing – finally some spring skiing with good snow and sunshine.

On top of the mountain, the temperatures were still down but there were some good groomed runs with snow that had some movement. Finally not the grippy stuff we have had for the last few days.

We spent the morning over at Summit, as with the Interschool Championships at Falls Creek from today, there were kids everywhere around Scott’s and Tower’s lifts and the associated runs. The skiing was good over there and the kids were also over there with the Junior Workshop.

Note to self – never be at the same resort as the Interschool Championships.

The kids were a little disappointed that Race Day Thursday was not on due to the Interschools but most of the classes ended up making their own race courses. Bradley and Rachael ended up racing a course on Lakeside. Bradley topped the Level 7 kids and Rachael won the Girls Division. They are both happy.

The muscles and joints of all of us are getting tired after 4 days of skiing so it will be interesting to see how we fair tomorrow given that we are heading home in the afternoon.

Tonight they held a special Night Spectacular to coincide with the Interschools. It was a good show and the fog started to roll in as the fireworks started so it made for interesting effects. At the end it was hard to tell the fog from the firework smoke as it descended over the Bowl due to the low temperature (below zero).

So in the moring, it is pack up time, put our gear in storage then ski for as much of the day as possible, shower, pack the car and head west to home. What a week. 🙂

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Well after all the snow that fell yesterday afternoon and night, there wasn’t much to show for it. It just made for interesting conditions today with a bit of powder on top of the existing harder snow so that when you skied your skis were constantly gripping or sliding depending on whether you were on powder or snow.

Conditions today were overcast with periods of fog, followed with some snow falls then rain then more snow. Not a real spring skiing day. For Jenny and I the muscles and joints were doing it hard in the conditions. 🙁

Bradley’s day was made worse when his level 7 group was joined with Rachael’s level 6 group due to a shortage of instructors as the School Championships started today. Now we have slopes full of school kids – look out for out of control kids.

Bradley eventually came a cropper trying to miss one of the level 6 kids injuring his left knee – we will see how it is in the morning after some rest – ice – compression – elevation (RICE).

Our mileage from the GPS was down 20km on yesterday but that was due to the conditions and also having to wait in line at the lifts due to all the extra school kids.

The conditions are supposed to be clearing tomorrow so could be some good spring skiing to come. 🙂

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It was good to catch up with old friends at Schuss Lodge last night for a card night. I won one game and Bradley won the other. It was a good night sleep by all – I guess all were a little weary after our first day.

It was a little slower this morning getting going but we finally made it up to the top of the mountain at 9:00am. A few runs with the kids and it was into Junior Workshop for them – they are enjoying their time and are clicking with their instructors.

Today we had both winter and spring skiing with 10 minute periods of sunshine and 5 minutes of snow. Sometimes the snow came in horizontal. Like most spring skiing the snow was turning into “elephant snot” by afternoon.

There was one time we even had to shelter of fear of turning into a snowman.

We made our annual visit to GC155NZ – Falls Creek Helipad for a photo and a check of the cache – all OK.

It was then back to the lodge just as the next dump came down – this one lasted for 20 minutes but the roads remain clear. It is supposed to snow all night and into tomorrow so skiing should be great again.

As a footnote: after Bradley took a shortcut to try and be first back at the Lodge last night and scored a major fail, he enlisted the help of a couple of ski instructors to find a faster shortcut. Well, tonight he got back first but only by 1 minute. I will need to find a different way tomorrow night. 🙂

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It was an eventful night with Rachael waking us up at 3:30am with a headache, then something chewing in the ceiling at 4:30am. Then up at 7:30am for a big first day.

The day didn’t look too good at the Lodge. You couldn’t see across the road due to the fog. It didn’t improve once we got up to the top of the mountain. Visibility was 50m at best and there was a cold wind – didn’t stop us skiing though. It probably helps if you can’t see where you are going.

We did a few runs with the kids then put them into Junior Workshop. Jenny and I then went to ski the mountain – well what we could see of it. It wasn’t long before Jenny was complaining of muscles and joints that hadn’t had a lot of use lately.

Every now and again while you were on the lift the fog would lift but by the time you reached the top, the fog was back.

At lunch we grabbed the kids to do some runs then they were back into Junior Workshop.

Towards the end of the day, we started to get a cross between snow and hail. This coincided with the end of Junior Workshop. Both kids were shagged so we headed back to the Lodge. When we got back down, Jenny realised that we had left a bag in the locker up the top, so Bradley and I went back up to the top to retrieve the bag.

After showers, we headed over the road to Schuss Lodge where we have spent the last 3 years to catch up with the Managers Helen and George. After tea it was back to Schuss for a card night.

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After a quiet night in Swan Hill, we were up and on the road at 9:30 am but only for a “short” time. After I finished filling up with fuel I noticed the inverter wasn’t working. Also the fridge wasn’t working. Interesting they are on different circuits.

Found the local Home Auto and started grabbing fuses, tools and set to work. After an hour, had it working and we were on our way. The fuse the inverter was on blew due to the inverter giving up and concurrently the low voltage detector on the boot circuit blew due to a faulty fridge plug. Couldn’t get an inverter in Swan Hill so picked up one in Shepparton.

The rest of the trip was uneventful with a couple of stops for fuel. We travelled through some areas that were affected by the February Bushfires – good regeneration going on there.

Our first glimpse of the white stuff was just out of Glenrowan of Mt Bogong with a better view at Coral Bank and the first snow on the ground was 2 km from the Village.

The roads in the Village had all been cleared on Thursday which meant we could drive straight to our accommodation, Viking Lodge. Makes it a lot easier than mucking around with oversnow transport.

Tomorrow, we get our skis and hit the slopes. 🙂

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Cache finds for the day:

GC1GGVH – Trained Sunset

GC1XTJG – ity bity postie 1

GA1439 – ity bity postie (same as GC1XTJG but on GCA)

Each year we head to the snow at Falls Creek. This year we weren’t going to go due to our US Trip but also there wasn’t a lot of snow early in the season.

Of course, what happens but it started snowing about 3 weeks ago, so you can’t let a good snow cover go to waste. Booked some holidays, booked some accommodation and we are away.

We didn’t do too bad getting away – about 20 minutes after we planned but we had a diversion on the way to drop off Jenny’s Mum with Molly at Callington then back on the road.

Also there was only 2 caches to pick up between home and Swan Hill so the trip went fairly quickly, arriving for the first time in daylight at our usual Swan Hill accommodation – Hill Top Resort.

A bonus for the day was that the first cache we found was a First to Find 🙂

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Cache finds for today:

GC1XX6P – Along the Mallee Highway 1

GC1WE2K – Visiting Mum