Snowboarding the Perisher Valley

I hadn't even seen snow in my life until the last snow season. Luckily me and four mates hatched an evil plan to head down to Jindabyne for some snowboarding (which none of us had ever tried either).

We flew to Sydney and hired a Tarago to drive from Sydney, through Canberra and out to Jindabyne - which is about 5 hours from memory.

We stayed at a place called the Station Resort, in a hut with five beds all in the same room. Had good heating, luckily.

We had breakfast and dinner included in our package so we didn't have to cook anything the whole time. This was awesome because coming home from the snowfields of a night we could barely move, let alone cook ourselves something to eat.

We had lessons included also, so every morning we would rock up for a lesson with the Tobester, a supremely radical snowboarding dude. The Tobester did the right thing by telling us to drink a cup of concrete if we were a bit too soft.

First day we all ate a lot of snow. I started out by aiming my board directly down the slope and hoping for the best as I rapidly accelerated to warp speed and then ending up in a high speed crash, hopefully involving only myself. However, I soon learnt that you actually have to turn and carve down the slope, and after that it got a lot slower and a lot safer for everybody around me.

After the second day we were only slightly less abysmal snowboarders, and the pain had started to set in. Two eight hour days of snowboarding had totally destroyed us physically, and I think we all felt a bit soft. However, I think it was the hump we had to get over, and we got used to it a lot more after that.

We managed to get out in old Jindy one night mid-week - and it was pumping! All the places we went to were completely full - it was a good night.

On the third day we really started to get the hang of it all, and we were going down some of the more advanced runs. Still had some pretty impressive stacks though. My friends Mark and Mende bought little cameras that they strapped to their heads so that they could get footage going down the slope. I ended up compiling all the footage into a little video.

By the fourth day we were doing some simple tricks and jumps and we were all feeling quite pleased with ourselves. However, we decided that we were all too buggered to attempt the fifth day, and we decided to head back to Sydney for a night on the town instead.

We all agreed that it was one of the best trips we had been on, and we have already planned our next snowboarding trip for this coming season. This time we are renting a whole house on the snow, at Falls Creek in Victoria this time! Stay tuned for a Blavel of that one!