Swandives

I promised stories from holidays and failed to deliver, so the beloved has stepped into the gap. Enjoy!

Guest columnist: My husband

Holiday reminiscing (as promised by George but not delivered): What my wife finds so amazing about snow I’ll never understand. Maybe it’s an Australian thing. You know, ‘oooooh it’s a hot hot hot country – ohmigod it’s something cold and wet … freezin’ cold and wet …’

Thus we have the hysterical scenes of George pirouetting around a completely deserted ski resort’s car park as the snow came down. Later we drove back in it as it got deeper and deeper and deeper and deeper and the car decided going up hills was really a chance to over-rev and slide sideways across the road. The fact, my wife spent most of the time hanging out of the car whoo-hooing and taking pics and shooting video while I slowly wet my pants is testimony to the power snow has over her.

There is a video of this massively dangerous traverse from the end of hell knows where to the other (closer to Khancoban) end of somewhere a little safer. Oddly, the local lyrebirds seemed equally sexed up by the snow and were running around with flakes on their butts. They were single. I mean there were no other lyrebirds sprinting across the road going “Oh baby, I love the snow on your butt.” Which goes to prove that snow ain’t sexy, at least when it comes to lyrebirds. Actually, it isn’t really sexy at all if you think about it because, according to George, if you go skiing you are so buggered by the end of the day you don’t feel like it.

Anyway, there was a lot of snow – all through the holiday there was snow. I fancy though that George was close to her snow limit and up to her neck in it when we attempted to walk to the summit of Mt Kosciusko from Charlotte’s Pass – a mere 18km round trip. Hell, I was going to run it but it was bloody slush, mush and snow – see what I mean … snow gets in the way. Soooo, there we were tramping along and the snow goes from underfoot to over ankle to up to knees and the wind is blowing straight into our faces, the temperature is dropping the further we go and the wind chill is minus enough to freeze your pee (okay, slight exaggeration, close to that). By the time we got to the hut at the 6km mark even a minister from Forbes who is about the most experienced mountaineer I’ve ever met – it got me wondering what he found on the mountain tops he’s reached … you know sightings and the like … you can see heaven on a clear day, maybe – was tucked away inside boiling stock cubes and preparing to go back down. That’s how bad it was. George at this stage was a little pooped and definitely snowed under (I’ve been saving that one for a month now). The man from Forbes (a bit like the one from the Snowy River only he didn’t have a horse but a mountain bike he left at the 5km mark because he couldn’t push it – yet alone ride it) delivered her a piping hot cup of stock and she perked up enough to demolish lunch (pre-packed) and venture back down again. By this stage the weather was closing in, visibility was close to ground zero and the weak summer sun (watery is the term we Brits use for it) had turned the lower snow to a muddy slush. Charming. All in all though it was fun – in a sado-masochistic kind of way. The only remaining question is: did the Japanese couple who were going up at 2.30pm ever make it down? And where did the ranger who left his 4WD at the 4.5km mark go?

On the way back to our swanky digs in Guthega, George opined perhaps she’d had enough snow. True! I’m telling it like it is! Sadly, by the next day she’d recovered enough to still gush at the snow on several peaks as we trekked along a 3km track for a bit of trout fish in the upper regions of the Snowy River. But really Aussies, what is it about snow? You truly are a weird lot. Oh, that’s been said before hasn’t it.
BTW: There are other stories to tell – like how I caught the biggest trout on this trip (for once) but I’ll save that for another chapter. For now, I’m strapping on my skis and jumping to the safety of Geemuses where we never talk about snow. Ever.