Wednesday Jan 24
First full day - unfortunately neither of us slept the previous night and Dieter developed a bit of a cold so it was a slow start to the day. It was dumping down snow but we headed out around 11am but only took one run due to very poor visibility and deep powder which made going tough work particularly for our first day. Back at our condo we had a light lunch at home then spent the afternoon resting, reading and sorting out some flight changes for our WA trip in May/June. We stayed home for dinner (steak, veggies and baked potato) and watched some Oz Open tennis.
Thursday Jan 25
I slept pretty well with the help of a sleeping pill and only got up at 8am, Dieter had another restless night and at time of writing this (9:45am) he’s still in bed not too well as his flash cold seems to have worsened. The snow keeps on falling.
Might be time to hire some powder skis. Dieter was under the weather so I went out on my own around 11am - the snow was great but even though it was no longer snowing the light was a little flat. I returned to our condo and had lunch then we spent the rest of the afternoon reading or sleeping in Dieter’s case. In spite of not feeling well we still went out for dinner, as planned, to Wildflower and had a nice meal - fish.
Friday Jan 26 - Australia Day
Another restless night - we both got up around 8:30am - it had snowed all night and was still snowing !!!
I convinced Dieter to make a doctor’s appointment as his ‘grippe’ was still hanging on and since the blizzard conditions continued I was not that keen to head out skiing. He got an appointment at 1:30pm so while he saw the doctor I did a bit of top-up shopping. Afterwards we had a very late light lunch at the Mallard - it did finally clear a little in the afternoon but by 3:30pm it was snowing again. We stayed home for a pasta dinner.
Saturday Jan 27
Another sleepless night for me but Dieter’s meds seemed to kick in and he had a good night. We got up to yet more snow (only flurries according to the forecast but pretty heavy).
Even though it was snowing it was a pretty good day - amazing conditions. We booked Christine’s for 1:15pm and only got in because our old friend Ellie, the manager, made an exception as they were fully booked. We had a couple of runs - Dieter was still under the weather but he soldiered on. Lunch was very good but the new menu has gone even more upmarket which we didn’t like as much.
Back at home it the to relax except the cleaner came in so we had to wait until she finished. Then I hopped into the spa bath which was now working after 2 service calls yesterday. We stayed home for dinner - rack of NZ lamb and red cabbage.
Sunday Jan 28
Up again to snow falling - flurries at 8am turning to heavy snow later (according to the forecast.
After a few runs on the lower mountain due to the snow and so-so visibility we headed to the Mallard for lunch. It was hopping but we squeezed in and shared a grilled cheese sambo then headed back to our condo for spa baths and showers. Later we went into village to look around and do a bit of shopping - mainly vino. We stayed home for sambos for dinner.
Monday Jan 29
Another late wake-up due to my restless night - big thaw overnight - with a high of 0℃ and heavy snow forecast it looks like rain is in the offing. It’s gone from powder skiing to spring conditions. As of 10am all alpine lifts (higher mountain) and the Peak-2-Peak are closed due to high winds - 111k’s on the peak. So we gave skiing a miss - did some shopping and stopped at the Dub Lhin for happy hour then had dinner at the Wildflower.
Tuesday Jan 30
Another late wake-up - 9am to a phone call from the Embarc concierge trying to persuade us to attend a “free” group dinner at Araxi - given that this year it has been impossible to secure a reservation at this restaurant it was temping but alas the catch is you need to attend an update presentation which is really a high pressure sales pitch to buy more points - "no way Jose” for us thanks. We finally headed out around 11am - clearly the rain and wet snow of yesterday had a serious impact on the snow conditions - from “rooster to feather duster” in 23 hours - the snow on the upper mountain (until about half-way down Springboard) was pretty good then it turned to hard packed (aka icy). After a few runs we took the Peak-2-Peak over the Steeps for lunch - excellent. Since the weather had closed in again we decided to just download and return to our condo. We had dinner at the newly renovated Il Camminetto - it was almost a disaster as they had no record of our booking but they squeezed us in after a 10 minute wait.