Perisher is about 6 hours (500km) South of Sydney and it's the home of Australia's best (in our opinion) ski resort.
We set of last Saturday and spent the day in Canberra - visiting a science museum called Questacon. We had a great time there and the kids loved doing various science experiments and learning about earthquakes, lightening and how gears work.
After dinner at the Pancake Parlour and a sleep we headed to the snow.
Our skiing started on Sunday afternoon - glorious sunshine and perfect crisp snow (it was about -5 degrees).
We were there with Amanda, Rob and their kids Sam (11), Skye (7) and Ben (1) - an almost perfect match with the Reid clan. We stayed with them at Lake Crackenback Resort - which was a wonderful location and only 20 minutes (by train) to the piste.
Each morning Jack had the pleasure of sitting at the very front of the train and pretending to drive -which he LOVED. He has not quite as in love with childcare each day...but he survived and seemed to be enjoying it by Day 6.
Anyway, we had 6 great skiing days. Monday to Wednesday: Blue sky, sunshine, bit of wind at times and excellent snow. Thursday: Blizzards, high winds but still 7 hours of skiing in great snow. Friday: Blizzards all morning then BLISS - blue sky, sunshine and a foot of powder snow. Emma thinks Friday was the best skiing conditions she has ever had...quite a claim for someone that has skiied in most European resorts.
James and Olivia had a great time. Skiing is their FAVOURITE sport now. They have now skiied for 21 days in the last 12 months and have another 7 days to come in just over four months time.
James is skiing parallel and loves steep black runs - the steeper and scarier the better.
Olivia is almost parallel and is incredibly brave. As we all headed up the Olympic T-Bar to the highest part of the mountain...with the steepest drop....and steepest/most icy slope....Olivia did not blink an eye. At the top she just set off down, doing neat little turns and keeping in control....as James headed over the edge, fell, got up, fell again etc. until he was at the bottom, covered in snow and smilling a lot.
A great week. The 6 hour drive back last night did not seem too bad.
At about 10:30am this morning I looked at James and realised he had slept in his ski pants and STILL had them on - that is how much he loves skiing.
