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.

Finally reached our destination for the night...

After dawdling our way through the countryside we have reached our destination for this evening...Tawonga South/ Mt Beauty.
We checked into our accomadation for the night...Allamar Motel

Our Room...Fantastic Comfortable bed for $115 per night and close to the snow, great value for money.
Thanks to Stuart for making us feel so welcome.

There was quite a few of us staying here for the night and we all ended up eating at the Settlers Tavern in Tawonga South for the evening.

Great meals and atmosphere all for a fair price. Recommend this place highly if you are passing through or in the vacinity of Mt Beauty.

After dinner we all headed back to the rooms for an impromptu drinks night in preparation for the weekend ahead of us all.

Top of Tawonga Gap

We went through Tawonga Gap to get to Mt Beauty, a nice windy road but great views from up the top.


Looking down to Mt Beauty from the top of Tawonga Gap under the Power towers



Me with Mt Beauty and the mountains topped with snow

The track up to the Power Towers on top of Tawonga Gap

Our first offical Snow Information Conference

This weekend is our first pilgrimage to a Snow Information Conference aka SIC. It is a yearly event where like minded people from http://www.ski.com.au/ get together to discuss the current trends in the snow travel, equipment and other snow related topics.
SIC rotates between all ski resorts in Australia and occaisionaly overseas (mini SIC), this year its at Falls Creek. For more information click here http://wikiski.com/wiki/index.php/Category:SIC

Most people are making their way up to SIC today with other popping in and out over the weekend, with most participants meeting up at the Falls Creek Motel which is kindl letting a majority of us stay there for the entire weeknd and will be the hub of most of the activities for the next few days.

Friday night is the drinks night and first offical activity planned, we are getting together and getting to know new faces, catch up with the more familiar faces over drinks and Tapas.
Saturday night we are all gathering at the Falls Creek Motel for dinner and drinks after a good say skiing we hope!

We left this morning after dropping Mr 15 off at school and currently drifting through the King Valley enojying the lovely sun shining through the windows and the clear blue skies on this winter morning.

So stay tuned for more....

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Temples,Snowflakes and Tepanyaki

15th February, 2008

As we leaving tomorrow for Niseko today was the last chance to get photos of around Furano, so we headed into the town to where I saw some temples on another trip into town.


Another challenege was catching the shuttle bus into Furano and trying to get it to stop where we wanted it to we had a quick look around the shops on our way back to the Temples and Statues.

Over the road from the Temple & Statues Garden was a school, the kids were outside for PE or during lunch doing cross-country skiing as an activity.

So after taking a few photos of the temples, some new some that looked thousands of years old due to wear on the statues, we walked back into the village.

On the way it began snowing lightly and gradually got heavier. I have always known that snowflakes were all different like fingerprints but never seen this with my own eyes as it doesn’t get cold enough in Australia for them to form into proper crystals. So like children we stood on the edge of the road and caught snowflakes in our hands to see how many different shapes there were.

As we continued to walk back to our lodge we saw the local postman riding his motorbike over the snow and ice with chains on the rear tyre, which looked out of place as its not something we see at home.

As it was our last day to ski in Furano, we headed up the Kitanomine Gondola right up the top of the mountain. It was a little foggy that day and the view wasn’t fantastic but still beautiful. The trees up the top were all covered in snow and ice and looked amazing. We slowly made our way down although because it was quite steep in parts it took us about an hour and a half to get down to the bottom. When Tom does this run by himself it doesn’t take nearly that long as he just flies down the mountain whereas I take my time.

We took some videos of us skiing & boarding to prove that we can do this for those that don’t believe us and got some great footage of me falling over quite spectacularly.

After we had enough skiing for the day I handed in my skis to the hire shop and we headed back to the lodge for a hot shower and to decide what we were going to do for our last meal in Furano.

Tom suggested we go to a Tepanyaki Bar that he went to last time. So we asked Ray who was staying at the lodge with us as well if he wanted to come along as he was also leaving the next day and was travelling alone. The three of us caught the bus into Furano to try and find this place after a few misdirections we found it and were eagerly awaiting our dinner.

So we could taste a variety of dishes we chose 3 to share, Spare Ribs, Okonimyaki and a Potato Pancake cooked by Masaya with all the flair of a great Tepanyaki chef. All of which were delicious and full of flavour as well as the Furano wine that I had with my meal. We all had crepes for dessert then it was time to go home and start packing for our early start in the morning.

Powder Snow and Glass Delights

14th February, 2008

Today was a bit better than yesterday so we went out skiing for a while and took a few photos of us both skiing & boarding. I had a better day skiing today as the wind had blown some of the powder off the runs so it wasn’t as thick to battle with. Its weird watching your ski’s disappearing under the snow and not feeling the base under you as you’re floating on top of the snow.

The weather started to close in so we decided to call it quits about 3pm and head out to the Glass Forest just outside of Furano.

As there are no buses running out to the Rokugo Area during winter we had to get a taxi out there. We got told it would be about ¥3000 each way but it turned out to be ¥5600 each way but it was definitely worth it!!

So after a very snowy taxi drive we arrived in the little town of Rokugo and pulled up to a very simple building, we walked into the pure beauty of the glass forest. Everywhere you look there was sparkles and colour, as we walked through the different showrooms we were more and more impressed and dazzled by the workmanship that was before us.

The showroom was broken up into 7 different and distinct display areas.

Needless to say we bought quite a few things here.

Kimono Dress Up's

13th February, 2008

Looking out the window this morning it was snowing heavily and the wind was blowing hard and with a temperature of -11 we decided to have a lazy day. We did manage to get outside today for a little while though as we did the washing at the local coin laundry which cost ¥250 to wash the clothes and ¥100 for 15mins on the dryer which is quite reasonable.

 Whilst we were waiting for the washing to dry I went and had a kimono fitted and some photos taken. They are very comfortable to wear. It was a bit of touristy fun.

Tonight’s dinner was a bit of a let down as a lot of things are closed on a Wednesday night so after trying a couple of different places we settled on the very next one we saw called Syoujiki Mura which served mainly Ramin which is noodle soup. The spring rolls and Gyoza were delicious but the Ramin lacked flavour and both Tom and I weren’t really impressed. Another quick walk home as its very cold and windy outside. Hopefully tomorrow will be less windy.

Snow Snow Snow

12th February, 2008

We woke up this morning to falling snow and at least 30cm of fresh snow blanketing everything. After breakfast we walked down to the post office to post some postcards, it was hard work walking through the snow as you had no idea where you were putting your feet.

When we got back from the post office we hit the slopes for a challenging day of powder skiing. I lasted a whole 2 runs unfortunately, after the walk this morning and not sleeping well the night before I was pooped to ski properly and had a fall also where I hit my head and bumped my shoulder badly so I packed it in for the day and went exploring.

I went over to the other side of the resort and had a look around the Craft Village, which had about 10 small wooden shops selling all sort of things like Glass wear, handmade paper goods, wooden ornaments, candles, metal goods. Lots of lovely things not enough money to buy some of each though. I bought some postcards and book marks from the handmade paper shop.

Tom stayed out boarding for the rest of the day and came home exhausted and is now napping on the bed.

We walked into Furano Township for dinner and thought we had found the place where we wanted to go but we got lost and to make things harder there are hardly any street signs around to help you find your bearings.

We found a place called Torisei, which did charcoal chicken. We got charcoal chicken and plain fried chicken which was done in an almost tempura style coating. Both of these were delicious and the sauce they served with matched perfectly.

 

 

 
 But it wasn’t enough to fill our tummy’s so we went to McDonalds on the way home and when we left there the fog had dropped and also the temperature to -16deg…bitterly cold that is!! So we had a very fast walk home.

Full Day Skiing ~ Japan Day

11th February, 2008

Today is Japan Day so it’s a public holiday but there doesn’t seem to be many people around. Another clear day today so we got out onto the runs a bit earlier today and made a decent effort. After a few warm up runs on the easy lower runs we headed up to the top and covered the whole resort. There are some spectacular views from up the top. Took a few photos around the place.

 

The runs here are mostly beginner to intermediate but most of they are steep to start of with then flatten out into lovely wide gentle sloping runs. The Prince run is lovely and wide which lends itself to cruising along but by the end of it you can definitely feel the legs burning by the end of it.

We had lunch at the Restaurant Down Hill which was up the top of the Ropeway. I had Spaghetti and meat sauce and Tom had Pork Cutlet Curry & Rice.

More skiing was had but we came in at 4pm as we were getting tired.

Dinner tonight was at Forum Furano, we both had Beef Stew which was very filling and tasty. It also started to snow lightly last night and hopefully there will be more to come.

First Day in Furano..Sun Sun Sun

10th February, 2008

After a good night sleep we both felt a lot better in the morning. We decided to take it easy today and take in the sunshine as heavy snow was predicted for the next couple of days. So we walked into the town to get a few things from the supermarket.

This was also a good chance to get some clear photos as well. I got some nice ones down by the River.

We didn’t get out on to the ski runs until 11am and just got our “snow legs” working and then decided to make it a short day so we wouldn’t be exhausted for the rest of the week.

That night we had dinner at Bakusyu which was a great meal, Tom had pizza which is a little different over here they do a really thin soft crust and pile on the cheese. I have a beef hamburger which was so yummy and full of flavour…definitely worth another visit!!