Dad and Dan Day 1

Friday afternoon saw some frantic packing as Dan and I packed for a weekend away.

Megan kindly drove us to the airport where she had to endure the wrath of one of those overly officious paking attendants.

Dan and I arrived in Canberra and Dand made comment about smoking.  Took a taxi to Henry's place.  He is away and I had texted him and he had kindly agreed and had advised me of the code to the alarm system and so it was with great trepidation that I, with notes in hand, opened the front door and with beeping all round managed to calm my nerves and punch in the code.  Pushed the on button on the central heating.

Henry had kindly left a note explaing that sheets and blankets could be found.  So we made beds and then unpacked anything we would not need at the snow.  By now the house was toasty warm and we went to bed.

4:00am Saturday Morning and I got up and left Dan sleeping while I got the car.  Henry has a wonderful Honda 4x4 and sitting in the drivers seat gives you an immediate impression that this is a well engineered car.  (Unlike the Vito which teaches you that the phrase 'German Engineering' is actually a swear word).  The instrument panel is clear and there are words in English to tell you what does what.  However the designers seemed to have forgotton the handbrake.  I looked all over and then noted that there were no red lights on the dash decided just to reverse out.  All went well.

Then it was back into the garage to get the chains and while I was there I spied a backpack.  Remembering that one has to carry ones luggage up the hill to the lodge I decided to toss in the back pack.

Dan woke easily and we tossed in our bags and were away.

First stop Cooma where we stopped into Rythm and hired Dan a pair of Ski pants $20.

Then the East Side Cafe which apart from Ski Tourists seems to cater mainly for bikies and we tetatively sat expecting either a police raid or a retribution drive by.

Everything about the place involved Motorbikes.

Or hand made wooden toys.

We ordered Bacon, Eggs & Pancakes.  Blow me over this is the bigest pancake I have ever seen.  Puts the Pancake Manor to shame.  It was good too.

And Henry's car and the main street of Cooma looking toward the snow.

After this we headed down and parked at Bullocks Flat.  I repacked my gear into the backpack and we bought ski tube and 3 day ski passes.






At Perisher, caught the free bus to Smiggins and then the value of the decision to use the back pack came into its own.  We hired skiis and then trudged up the hill to the chalet.  At the chalet, Dan fround a friend and they toboggoned ? on a small patch of snow.