The big Winter weekend. Is it really Christmas already!
Well! This is it! The big weekend in the snow of Corin Forest near Canberra! It is machine produced snow but plenty of it to provide areas for snow boarding, skiing, tobogganing and snowplay. First an early morning flight to Sydney where we collected our hire car. Only just over an hours flight then the 4 hour drive to Canberra to our home for the weekend.
First job, start a 1000 piece jigsaw. A bit ambitious in 3 evenings but you never know unless you try!
We all loved the house. The thoughtful owner had put the heating on for us as it was very cold. There was a whole street of takeaways to suit all tastes. I've never seen such a variety all in one place. We could have had McDonalds (of course!) then fish, chicken or burgers and chips. Chinese, Indian, Vietnamese, Thai, Subway, Turkish, Cheesecake shop, frozen custard. We all chose something different so we were going from one shop to another for about 20 minutes.
A really cold (-2C), misty, early start Saturday morning as the children had their first ski lesson at 8am and we had to be there at 7.30am to get their clothing, boots and helmets sorted. The house was about 40 minutes drive from the resort.
The class was just 7 children with a very nice instructor called Maxine. This first lesson was to teach all the children how it feels on the skis, simple manoeuvres and, most importantly, how to stop on a small slope so that they could them transfer to the bigger slope the next day. Josie took to it immediately. However, Elliot found it a bit harder to master the stop without falling over. After a quick return to the house for lunch it was back for an afternoon of fun with snowplay.
We had 2 hours of snow fights and tobogganing for us all. It was so lovely to see Kerri and Richard relaxing too, especially on the toboggans.
We moved on to Canberra before going back to the house. Richard spotted lots of lights near a park so we decided to investigate in case there were food stalls.
As we approached I could hear a rendition of 'O Holy Night' which seemed strange as it is about as far away from Christmas as we can get. It seems that as December is so hot they hold a Christmas Market in July when it is colder. There was a huge tree, carols and lots of lights.
5 very tired people returned to the house for a good night's sleep before another early start the next day for ski lesson 2 at 8am. A quick reminder of the things learnt the previous day and then they were off to the bigger slope. Josie again mastered new skills quickly. Elliot took a little longer but was soon looking a lot happier on the slope. At the end of the lesson they were both deemed ready for the next level of tuition but that would have to be something in the future maybe.
After the finish of their lesson the package I had booked allowed them to use the main slope for a further 2 hours on their own. What a difference this made as without the supervision Elliot seemed to finally get to grips with it all and was soon flying down the slope with perfect control. Josie had found it all a lot easier from the start but seemed a little unsure about speed. She certainly had good control and style. A very successful introduction to skiing and snow.
Finally the bit I was most looking forward to, the 1.2 km Alpine Slide. This is when my luck ran out! It had started to rain and the slide was closed for the rest of the day and was fully booked for the foreseeable future. So that was that! No slide for me!
Instead we went back to Canberra to visit the Mint. They have a fascinating museum where we could look down on the workshops. As it was a Sunday there was nothing happening but I know Norman would have found it fascinating, especially as so much is done by robots now.
The children could design their own coins and there were machines to test our ability to spot errors on coins and test our dexterity which is needed in the production of coins.
Finally, back to the house to start packing ready to leave in the morning.
We went back to Canberra in the morning to visit Parliament House. The building was started in 1981 and officially opened on 9 May 1988. The marble foyer is beautiful. Above the doors are lovely wood marquetry panels of native plants. We took a look at the Senate Hall (red) and the House of Representatives (green).
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After a visit to the cafe it was finally time to return to Sydney for the flight back to Brisbane. It had been a special weekend for me and hopefully for the family too.
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