A weekend up in the mountains

Sometime back, Edwin asked me if I would like to go up to the alpine regions in Victoria for a skiing/snowboarding trip. I agreed and thought, "hmmm will it actually come true?" Well, it did. This trip was organised by Sarah's friend, Tammathy and I must commend the effort he put in organising this trip. Anyway, last Friday morning, at approximately 2am, we boarded the bus from Melbourne Central, headed towards Victoria's alpine regions, about a 5.5 hour bus ride fro, the city. The journey there was boring. All I saw throughout the journey: fog, rural roads, bushes and... more bushes. The last hour (going uphill) was extremely uncomfortable, because the road was very narrow and winding (worse than Genting, Cameron or Fraser's Hill). I thought I wasn't going to make it, but nope, I survived. I didn't vomit. Nyeh nyeh.

We arrived at 7.15am and proceeded to store our luggage at the luggage room (check ins at 3pm). Went in groups to collect our ski/snowboarding equipments and then got ourselves changed into our attire. The weather was lovely, it was snowing lightly, but with sunshine. We took the ski lift up to the mountain and started boarding by ourselves. It wasn't easy, as everyone fell about a million times. Hehe. We had a quick, short bite at Cloud 9, this "cosy" restaurant located at the top of the mountain, right beside the ski lift area. At 12pm, we met our snowboarding instructor, P.J. from Belgium. Here, we were treated to a gruelling two hour snowboarding lesson, in which P.J. claims, "too easyyy" every five seconds or so. By the time our lesson ended at 2.15pm, I was almost *dead*. SO much for running when I was back in Malaysia for like three times weekly. Bah. Played around a bit, before heading back to Cloud 9 to rest. In the end, Linda, muscle man and I fell asleep on the table. How malu-fying! The rest woke us up at around 4pm, telling us that it was time to get back to our hotel (Falls Creek Country Club) as it was time for us to check in.

Initially, I was thinking that the place we were staying in was some small and dodgy place. Fortunately, it turned out to be the total opposite, as the place was lovely and cosy! An unit fits six, so I shared one with Edwin, Linda, Eujin, Chi and Val. Our place came with everything, it was just awesome. Everything from cutleries, to pots and pans, to... fruit bowls! Lol. Anyway, below are some pictures of our apartment/lodge/whatever you call it.






Some pictures from our first day:

This was sooooo candid but nevertheless, it turned out to be so poser-fying.

I practically fell asleep after dinner (instant noodles, doh), which was like at 7.30pm. Hehe too tired la, what to do? Anyway, it was a much needed rest for me because the next day, we woke up and as usual, had our breakfasts and proceeded to go up once again.

We were supposed to have our lessons again, but somehow, thanks to um.. miscommunication, none of our instructors turned up. We rode on our own instead. The weather was bad, it was super cold, windy and foggy.

Some of the people hanging out at Cloud 9 for lunch.

After lunch, Edwin and I decided to head out to one of the "green" (i.e. beginner's) trail with some other people. The weather was extremely bad and in the end, everyone went by themselves. Thankfully, I had him with me because he helped me out sooo much! Maklum-lah, I am such a weakling right? Everytime I stood up with my board, I either started moving forwards damn fast or I skidded sideways. Nevertheless, I survived and instead, completed a blue (*ahem* intermediate) trail called Highway 83. Bangga gila babi.

Me, on my way down Highway 83... I fell down and "graciously" proceeded to snap a very "professional" looking photo. If you click on the map below, you can see on your bottom left side, that I was supposed to go on the green trail called Drover's Dream, but ended up at some blue trail which links to Highway 83 in the end.

Got downhill by 5pm, and rushed to return the equipments because the place was closing at 6pm. After returning the stuff, Chi, Val, Eujin, Linda and I decided to walk home instead of taking the "Falls Creek van". The snow was thick, so it wasn't too hard to walk on.

Linda's snow angel:

Got home, chilled and cleaned up... then Linda and I went downstairs to the restaurant for dinner. I had the grilled eye fillet. Yummmmm. I opted for mash potatoes but they ran out of it so they gave me chat potatoes instead. Nevermind la, still edible. Linda had pizza and we had lemon-lime bitters.

After dinner, I went over to the other room (way more happening than ours lol) to join in the fun. Sat down and watched the rest play "circle of death"... some drinking game. I can't really drink, so I decided not to play. Imagine if I picked the last king??? Hailat i tell you.

Left their room around 1am and went back over to sleep. Woke up early on Sunday morning, as our check out time was 10am. After checking out, we went up to the village area to chill, since the bus will only be leaving at 12.30pm.

Had hot chocolate at Max's Cafe to kill time. Some of them decided to skip the drinks and built a snowman instead. Interestingly, the snowman turned out to be a snowwoman. With incredibly sharp tits... and she's a smoker.

Snapped pictures, played with snow, joked around...

The crew (bottom l-r): Ben @ Muscle man, Sing Yee, Sarah, May Lin, Edwin, Willie, Val, Chi, Eujin, Shaun, Linda and I

Left Falls Creek at around 12.45pm and finally, reached Melbourne city at around 6pm. Below are some pictures of Falls Creek:

All in all, it was an enjoyable trip, albeit it burned a bigggg hole in my pocket (AUD$700+ for whole trip inclusive of food and stuff) and also, caused me damn a lot of aching (ass, legs, thighs, shoulders........); I thoroughly enjoyed myself, what with the company and challenges it made me face (heights, confidence blablabla).