Last day breakthrough

June 30

Boy did I sleep well. The annoying aches I had expected didn’t eventuate and I had the handle on the electric blanket. Amber didn’t even stir until after 7am! I boiled the kettle to throw on the frosted windscreen (I am finally getting the hang of this!). We would have been at the snow by 10am but I forgot to get fuel in Adaminaby and we needed to go on a bit further to Cabramurra, the highest village in Australia, to fuel up. We made it for our 11.30am lesson, but the booking had been lost. Turned out in our favour I think because we ended up with Pete as our teacher. Three runs with him and I was snaking around with ease and enjoying it enough that I didn’t want to leave the snow. We even graduated to the big slope and an even bigger chair lift with a scary exit!

By now it was snowing hard and our woolly hats were frosted just like the trees. The viz was down to a few metres and we felt like intrepid explorers. What a wonderful feeling to learn a new skill… I am so glad Amber wanted to snow board! Four times we traversed the big slope and would have done more if our legs weren’t dropping off. So, around 3.30pm we called it a day and took the small lift back to the lodge. We couldn’t resist one more slide down the bunny slope and did so with such ease our heads swelled.

A few obligatory souveniers in the shop and thankful goodbyes and we handed in our media passes and rental gear. The parking lot was white where once it was black and we carefully made our way back to San Michelle, dropping off the rented snow chains on the way. I was sorry we didn’t have another week because I feel we would be really proficient (if not dead!).

For the fourth night in a row we chatted to other guests over dinner and warmed our bones in front of the fire before stumbling back to our room in exhaustion. What a fantastic day… one I wouldn’t want to have missed for the world. Tomorrow we depart and head back to Sydney…