Ahh this is the life.....

We awoke this morning to a beautiful clear blue sky and looking over the valley up to snowy peaks...

And a little frost on the ground...Is this a promising sign?

After the super keen SICo's headed off early we stayed in bed for a little longer then headed off into town for some breakfast at Treats Cafe...another must do if your in the area.

Found this lovely Russian Man to share breakfast with.....

After breakfast it was time to head up the mountain and the time for SIC to officially begin!!

Arriving at the village it was time to park the car and arrange transport up to our accommodation. Now Falls Creek has always been notorious for its Oversnow transport being unorganised, rough bone shaking trips and leech enough money of you to solve a small countries national debt! So you could imagine the surprise when we found that the Resort Management had taken over the contract for the Oversnow Service of years gone by and replaced it with brand new Prinoth Husky all-terrain vehicles ! More Info....

Wow, what a difference the trip is now to how it used to be!! Lovely smooth ride, heated cabins and quite reasonable in cost compared to lugging all your luggage up to your accommodation. A HUGE improvement!


Once we got to Falls Creek Motel which was going to be our home for the next 3 days, we thought that we would have to store our gear for a couple of hours until we could check in but luckily our rooms was ready early so we got to check in as soon as we arrived *thumbs up to housekeeping*

Walking into our room we were greeted with this.....



Tom was quick to lay down for a little while....

and then this view from our window.....

 Once we had put all our gear into the room we went down to the Balcony and found all the early birds that had headed up the mountain before us and also some others that had arrived the day before, so we joined them for lunch after introductions all round to our new found friends and matched faces to the forum names that we have been conversing with over the years.
This is always fun as you have to try and remember 2 names per person Forum & Real Name! Can get quite confusing at times!!!




Some of the locals enjoying their lunch....


Once the skiers had left for an afternoon slide, we left for a wander around the village. The snow on the road was thick and slushy so quite hard to walk in at times as the Oversnow Vehicles chop it all up.

When we got back to the motel we headed towards the lounge and sat in front of the open fire.....hard life I know...hehe!                                               

                                          

This was a practice drink for the forthcoming "Wine/Drinks Night" that was on later after we all had dinner at our prospective lodges.

An amazing dinner consisting of 2 Entree, Choice of 3 Mains and 3 Desserts...all very delicious and full of flavour was enjoyed throughly by all and then we moved onto Feathertop Lodge for the Wine/Drinks Night.

Unforutnately the night didn't go off without a hitch, everyone had a great night trying different wines from all over the world ( imports from Vancouver the highlight!) alongside some ( very small plates of !) Tapas.



 

Vino Overload!

 

Wine & Tapas Selection



The Manager had a bee in his bonnet about something and most of us felt a little uneasy towards the end of the night and believe their could have been some imporivements for the night considering the amount of 'extra' people that would be walking through his door for the night during a low occupancy season in general at the ski resorts. For the $15 perhead that we paid for the tapas/corkage, having several larger platters with 3-4 different items placed around the room would have worked so much better than the few small plates we got placed on one table to the side of the room. IMHO (In my humble opinion)

So after we couldn't stay at Feathertop anymore we moved to Trackers Lodge where a few of the forum members were staying, and we continued our night until the wee hours of the morning.