Skiing Trip 2018 - Day 9 and 10, Sydney

Sheraton on the Park is the nicest hotel we've stayed at this trip, what a beautiful room. I went to the gym as soon as we got in after the drive from Canberra, then we got dressed-to-impress to head to Quay, one of the best meals we've had in our lives.

Quay was something else. The food, the drinks, the service, and the view were really incredible. The degustation was quite seafood heavy, which I was quite intimidated by at first, but my mind was immediately put at ease after the first course of "Oyster Intervention" was described to us as Peter Gilmore's version of the taste of oysters without the gross texture - I completely agree with you Peter! It was amazing, I would love oysters if they were all served like this.

Every single course was beautiful, interesting, and served in a way that made the experience complete, for example, the "Hand Harvested Seafood" course was served in a bowl that looked like a rock pool. The dessert that replaced the Snow Egg, the White Coral, was exceptional (I even loved the feijoa!).

The menu was almost perfect as it was, with the only change being the sand crab, which Andrew substituted for a cauliflower course. I'm so glad I went with the Malted Barley Crumpets as they were.

As seems to be the fashion at these fancy degustations, the wine pairings were very generous so we stumbled out full and happy.

We had a nice sleep in, used the gym, then checked out and drove to Billy Kwong, Kylie Kwong's restaurant. We were a bit early so we parked then went for a walk to Mrs Macquarie's Chair to get a windy but beautiful view of the bridge and Opera House.

Billy Kwong was seriously good, with every dish being the best version of that dish I've ever had (pork buns, silken tofu), and every dish we'd never tried before (xo eggs, salt bush cakes) being an absolute winner.

The best part is that Kylie was actually there! She was mostly "stalking the pass", but she served us a couple of the dishes from the banquet menu, it was so cool.

Ottoman, Quay, and Billy Kwong; I don't think we'll have a better set of consecutive meals anytime soon.

We're now waiting in Qantas club for our flight. It's my first time in here, I'm happy to be Andrew's guest, and happy they let me in with Ugg boots on! What an amazing trip, I can't believe it's over already!

Skiing Trip 2018 - Day 8, Canberra

Yesterday we spent the day exploring Canberra, including a long scenic walk around lake Burley Griffin, a guided tour of the War Memorial, drinks and lunch at Bent Spoke, and dinner with Iva and Uncle Paul at Ottoman.

The walk around the lake was lovely, but I definitely regretted not bringing my big jacket when we weren't in the sun! We loved how everything was the "National" version of the thing, with the "nationality" reaching it's peak (well 3 peaks) when we discovered that we were exploring the National Triangle.





The War Memorial was really amazing, so much more than we expected. We thought it might be on par with Te Papa in Wellington, but it was even more impressive. They had so many artefacts, including about 6 planes mounted in the exhibits, and the tour guide was so knowledgable and interesting that we didn't even mind the tour went over the 90 minutes. We didn't set aside enough time, but you would need days to properly explore the whole thing.





We gave into the cold and Ubered to Bent Spoke for beer and lunch. It's a great brewery / pub with a wicked food menu, and the bicycle themed "paddles" were so cool. Almost makes up for missing so many of the beer events back in Perth.







It was so nie to catch up with Iva! And meet Andrew's uncle Paul. Dinner at Ottoman, a two-hatted Turkish restaurant was outstanding. The menu was huge, with the specials alone enough to make up a whole other menu. We decided to share entrees and mains so we'd have the best chance of trying as much as possible, and everything we did try (including the sardines) was infallible.



Today we're going to catch up with Iva again to see her new apartment and grab some breakfast, and then we're off to Sydney!

Skiing Trip 2018 - Day 7, Skiing, Jindabyne to Canberra

Yesterday was our last day of skiing, and even though our knees were sore, our noses were sunburnt, and both our boots started playing up, we definitely made the most of it. We spent the morning at Mt Perisher, and while I did Happy Valley, Andrew braved the blue runs on Mt Perisher, including the ungroomed Towers run, it sounded crazy!



We met back up at mid station and made our way over to Smiggen Holes for lunch and decided to spend the afternoon there. We did the beautiful green Wood runs a bunch of times, tried the j-bar, then decided to try some of the blues which we heard were very gentle. Blanchy's was NOT gentle! The first section was extremely steep, but I managed to get down (very slowly) while Andrew waited patiently. There was another couple, the girl also called Jess, in the same predicament; other Jess was freaking out and her boyfriend was trying to encourage her down. I went first, but couldn't look back to see where other Jess was; hope she made it!



Andrew continued to do the blue runs off the Wills (or Burke) T-Bar while I did the chair run (also blue run, but actually a gentle one as promised) then we met up to take the Smiggens Escape back to the Telemark T-Bar then back to Perisher. We did the V8 run a couple more times then called it a (well enjoyed) day. Andrew finally gave into doughnut-smell temptation at the Skitube station and enjoyed the mini doughnuts.



Here's some photos from the roaming Perisher photographer!








An overview of skiing at Perisher:

• I can't believe how good the snow was in Australia
• There are wombats on the slopes at Guthega, probably why there's a run called Wombats
• Smiggen's Hotel has the best soup of the day
• I can do some blue runs now and not be scared of dying
• I can't believe I did Zali's and didn't die
• Andrew is getting really good, way better than I am, and can do all blue runs without being scared of dying
• The Station is not a bad motel at all, but beware the heater settings
• People may take your skis accidentally since all the rental ones look alike; lock your skis with a friend so there's one of each together to make it harder for someone to make that mistake!

The drive to Canberra was OK but the sun was already down so we didn't see much other than the pretty view of Lake Jindabyne when we first left. The edges of the road were again littered with a massacre of kangaroos and wombats, so we took it quite slowly, especially since we saw a bunch of kangaroos grazing at the side of the road.

I feel the most sorry for the poor dead wombats; they're always positioned so comically with their little paws up in the air, and they're usually spray painted pink (I guess for visibility?) which adds to the indignity of their deaths, poor little things. I guess we're used to seeing roos, but the wombats seemed so much more tragic.

Last night we arrived at the beautiful and stylish QT hotel, such a nice change! The hotel is lovely, but compared to the Wellington QT (which we stayed at last year) the staff are not quite at the same standard. We've had a few confusions, mostly to do with the staff having no idea what the priority guest program is about, but the funniest one was this morning when we noticed we only had 1 non-decaf coffee pod, called to ask for more regular ones, then the staff came back with more decaf coffee pods! Can't really complain though especially since the room is fantastic, and each thing has really just been funny. Drinks, olives, and polenta chips at The Capitol were outstanding (despite having to improvise an olive pip cup).





Today we'll be exploring Canberra and seeing Iva for dinner tonight!

Skiing Trip 2018 - Day 4, 5 and 6, Skiing!

Man I love skiing!

After picking up our gear (mine was serendipidously labelled Alex H) we took the 8am Skitube (a mountain train) to Perisher Valley. We did a couple of runs on the magic carpet run, then the V8 chair run to warm up for our lesson at Blue Cow (another stop on the Skitube).







The lesson was really fun! We agonised for ages as to which group to go into, and since everyone else was agonising too the instructors decided to merge a dark green / light blue group, then split off after assessing our skills on a couple of runs. We landed in the light blue group, of which Andrew was the best and I was the worst. The instructor focused on getting us into parallel turns, hockey stops, and took us up a couple of blue runs (Side Saddel and Zali's) which was great to get our confidence up. I absolutely shat it on Zalis though, and had to snow plow every turn, but, I didn't die! Andrew did amazingly.

We also used a t-bar for the first time! I cannot believe this is a thing, it's fucked up. The first time was OK, the second time we fell quite comically, and now I think we have the hang of it, but only by swearing the whole way up. What a crazy invention! I don't trust them. They always pretend they're going to push you into a pole before pulling you away at the last minute.





We skied across Perisher and Blue Cow, stopping for a curry lunch at the Blue Cow terminal beer at Perisher terminal.





I was much more well prepared for Day 2.



Day 2 was a beautiful blue bird day and we spent it going across the Perisher, Blue Cow, and Guthega runs. My favourite run was from Perisher, V8 Chair down to the Perisher Quad Express Chair (full way up) via the bottom of Escapade, then down the Blue Cow Express Way and Copperhead Road down to the Telemark T-Bar, then back to the bottom of Perisher. We did that a couple of times, and stopped for lunch at the Sun Deck.







Then, on the Norwegian Trail we saw a wombat! No one warned us there was a possibility of running into a goddamn wombat. It was so cute, I can't imagine what it must have been thinking.





We hung around for night skiing and fireworks at Perisher, and dinner at Jax which was a giant plate of veggies for me (thanks Andrew for asking for more steamed veggies), and a self-cooked steak for Andrew.









When going back to grab our skis, we noticed that someone had grabbed Andrew's instead of theirs (there was an almost identical set near by). The very helpful Kate from Perisher explained that this actually happens a lot, and to just go back to the ski hire place in the morning and let them know what happened. Andrew got a new set in the morning in time for his lesson on Day 3, aka the Blizzard of Doom day.

Andrew had an awesome lesson this morning and was lucky enough to land in a group of 3, basically a private lesson. They did Accelerator and Zali's (two blue runs) at Blue Cow; I'm so impressed since it started snowing quite heavily  at around 10:30am, which was midway through his lesson. We decided to make our way to Smiggens Holes in the hopes that it would be a bit more protected from the snow, but it certainly was not. After an awesome lunch at the Smiggens Hotel, we did a few runs (at, we estimate, ~20% visibility being optimistic) before deciding to call it a day since the snow was completely taking over our goggles, and make our way back to Perisher.







We almost perished. It was crazy getting back! Although, there was a family with a small child on a tow rope making the same run back to Perisher as we were so maybe it wasn't as crazy as I thought. But, at one point I literally couldn't see a thing and the wind was blowing a gale down the mountain, who's edge was uncomfortably close to the narrow cat track we were on. The mulled wine at the end was absolutely necessary.



I can't believe tomorrow is already our last day! Hopefully the crazy snow today will make it a perfect day tomorrow. We're planning to ski the whole day, then drive to Canberra. I don't feel sorry for looking forward to staying in the beautiful QT Hotel tomorrow night; The Station is functional, but not the luxury we left at The Hyatt in Melbourne.

I'm so glad I've started being able to do blue runs!