Walking in a Winter Wonderland

Winter is started to wind down in Australia but there is still snow in the mountains and chilly mornings in Melbourne. Neither Ross nor I had seen snow in Australia yet and really wanted to make sure to get up into the snow before the year was over. We finally accomplished that goal last weekend when we went cross country skiing at Lake Mountain Alpine Resort. Last weekend was a kind of crazy weekend though so I'll jump back to Thursday before I get into the skiing adventure.

Cross country skiing at Lake Mountain

Last Thursday was the first night of White Night in Melbourne. White Night initially started in Paris in 2002 and Melbourne was the first Australian city to host the event in 2013. It is an interactive art and light festival that lasts all night with projections on buildings, stationary art exhibits and moving art work, plus food, music and acrobatics. Prior to this year, it had been held in the summer and 500,000+ people attended the one night event. This year, the event was moved to the winter and staged over three nights instead of just the one. Ross and I had tried to attend previous years and were turned away by the insane crowds. This year we went on Thursday (the first night) and really enjoyed it. The weather was cool but it didn't rain and the event wasn't nearly as crowded as it was in past years so we were actually able to see everything.

On Saturday we went up to Lake Mountain, which is about two hours out of Melbourne. We had been planning on going snowshoeing but there is only one snowshoe path and it isn't terribly long, so we opted to go cross country skiing instead. The last time that I was on XC skis was when I was maybe 14 (though probably younger) and Ross had never been before. We both fell a bunch (though I won that competition with the most falls) but we had a great time anyway. There were a handful of people who looked like they knew what they were doing but most people looked about like I'm sure we did. The snow wasn't the most amazing but I'm used to Colorado powder, so there's really no competition. I will fully admit that until I moved to Australia, I didn't realise that it snowed here so any snow is pretty amazing. That being said it was really surreal to be skiing and playing in the snow surrounded by eucalyptus trees (snow gums).

On Sunday we had been tossing around the idea of going skiing again but we were far too sore for that. Instead we decided to take full advantage of our hire car and drive out to the You Yangs Regional Park and go hiking. The park is located about an hour south west of Melbourne. We were pretty tired from skiing so we only hiked up Flinders Peak and then laid in the sun at the top for a while. Eventually the clouds started moving in so we meandered back to the car, found a cute cafe for lunch and then made our way back to Melbourne.

As I said, it was a pretty full on weekend but we had a great time and really enjoyed being able to get out of Melbourne. Ross is winding down his dissertation and planning on submitting it for external review by the end of October, if not before. Once that happens we are planning on getting a car and then doing a lot more camping and hiking on the weekends (sooooo excited for hiking adventures!). Until then we have a couple more weekend adventures planned so that Ross (and I) can escape dissertation-land.