Snowed Under

It has been many years since any of us have skied and the girls have only skied once before so we were quite happy to be testing our legs at the gentlest of skifields. Selwyn Skifields is a small resort with short wide runs. There are only 10 lifts and only two black runs. These conditions would be perfect for our less experienced capabilities.

The snow cover was excellent and every lift and run was open which is not always the case on Australian skifields. After a wobbly start while we found our ski legs we quickly got comfortable with the easier runs before tackling some of longer more challenging (for us) trails.

The next day it snowed. And snowed. And snowed. As we pulled in to the Selwyn carpark the first flakes were falling and by the time we reached the top of the first run it was falling steadily. Today was a test for all of us, having never skied in falling snow before. Skiing in fresh powder is very different to skiing on an established groomed slope. It's stickier and we found we had to change the way we skied to cope with the conditions.

Of course, falling snow means it is cold on the chairlifts. We had no idea how our mish-mash of old, borrowed, handed-down and hired clothing would hold up but on the whole we did ok. By far, the best dressed and warmest of us was my daughter who was wearing the handed down goose down lined jacket her uncle had worn while on student exchange in Norway 30 years previously. We had also been lucky enough to get four of the last five goggles on sale at our local Aldi store a couple of days before our trip. Those were a god-send!

Two days was perfect for us and we have vowed to not leave it so long before we go again.