There was movement at the station...

...For the word had passed around; that Shendelle and Mop from Perth had gone away; And had joined the Geoff and Peter, who had travelled snow-ward bound; for some skiing in the mountains for six days...
(For those of you that don't know, that was a take-off of Banjo Paterson's "The Man from Snowy River", incidently where we went...)

Yes, we have done it! Mop and Shendelle packed their bags are took off for Perisher Blue for a skiing trip in New South Wales. Actually, our great Queenslandian friends Geoff and Pete are working at Perisher and living in Jindabyne so we thought we would pay them a visit.

Tuesday, Day 1... Perth to Melbourne to Canberra to Jindabyne
We had an early start, 5:00am, and arrived at Perth airport just as the final boarding call was being announced for our flight. I got in trouble at the check-in when the guy asked "Do you have any explosives" and I said "Of course we do", for which he abruptly replied "Are you going to get smart?", and I timidly pulled my head in.
The four hours we had at Melbourne airport were fun... four hours which were spent at PJ O'Briens and resulted in us getting smashed with some boys who we met at the pub who were heading back to Perth.
Surprise, surprise... the first thing we did when we arrived in Jindi (aside from discover that you can walk the entirity of Geoff and Pete's apartment in about 5 steps and one arm spam...) was went to one of the two pubs the town has to offer, The LJ (Lake Jindabyne Hotel). We managed to score a whole heap of dresss ups (..we love this place already!)

Wednesday, Day 2.... Jindabyne to Perisher
Pete had the day off, so he took us up the ski tube the the snow fields. Shendelle almost had a fit of excitement when she first saw the snow on the mountain. The best thing was ganging up on Pete when we had a snowball fight at the top of the mountain... or maybe when we rolled down the hill after we tackled each other... or maybe when Shendelle fell thigh deep in the snow...
Geoff, Jimbo and I headed to "The Banjo" that night, only to come home again 20 minutes later because the line was too big. Can you believe it - the town has no McDonalds, and yet you have to line up for the pub. On arriving home, we soon discovered that Geoff "just loves porn"... he just loves it.

Thursday, Day 3... Jindabyne to Perisher
Decided that the best way to kill the two hours we had before our skiing lesson was to go to the pub... Skiing was so much fun, and we soon discovered how easy it is to fall over when you are on skis.. even when you are just standing there. Spewing about the instructor though, he wasn't as hot as we thought he was going to be, was such a shame.
When we went to the shop that afternoon, we asked the attendent what people get up to one Thursday nights... apparently Tuesday's and Thursday's it's $6 Chicken Schniddy (aka Schnitzel) nights at the LJ. Funny how in this town, everyone's lives revolve around Chicken Schnitzel nights and raffles at the Bowl-O on Fridays...
That night we ended up having a few drinks at the Banjo with Geoff and Pete, who enlightened us with there theories that they would never ever marry girls who wouldn't change their last names when they got married. We say...get up with the times boys and move out of Innesvale. Shendelle and I later moved onto the LJ, and were happy chatting to all the 10 guys that were available for every girl. Somehow we ended up at a party - well, we were duped into thinking it was a party - that had four people - us and a couple of P-Platers - somethings never change I guess...

Friday, Day 4... Jindabyne
Jimbo was fascinated when he came home from work at Geoff's snoring habits, we video-taped him whilst putting make-up on his face, which he was extremely happy about as you could imagine. We ended up at the "Bowl-O" (the Bowls Club, we love this place hehe), where you can get a good feed. Sadly, we missed the raffle, where you can win four boxes of food!!! (So Geoff excitedly tells us.)
Later, we partied again at the LJ, and met up with some boys we met who were from Sydney. When the pub closed, we ended up in a cab with them, then in the back of a van, where they took us to Pikey-ville where it was absolutely freezing cold, and there were about five of them staying in a caravan that incidently was bigger than Geoff and Pete's apartment. I don't think we have ever stayed in a place that was so freezing. When we got up in the morning, there was the little thought... "Where are we, how did we get here?"... we got home at about 7:00am, Pete had already got up and gone to work a couple of hours earlier... hehe. nice effort I say.

Saturday, Day 5... Jindabyne
We slept most of the day, recovering from the night (morning?!) before, but thought we'd make it up to the boys by cooking them all dinner. They were so excited.
Saturday is the second biggest night in Jindabyne (that is, after Wednesdays). Everyone who is anyone was at the LJ, including us, for a big night of drinking, dancing, and pool playing. Pete gave us his best impression of Nelly by wearing a bandaid on his face all night. We also discovered our new pick-up line: "You are so hot, I am melting because I am the snowman."
It didn't seem as much fun as Friday night, aside from seeing a guy dressed up as Santa. Pete left the pub early, but somehow managed to get lost on the way home (how? we don't know, the whole place only has one street), and came stumbling in after we got home. Geoff didn't make it. We decided seeing as they weren't home we'd steal their beds. Pete was too drunk to notice and slept on his anyway, and in the morning showed us his true form by throwing his guts up in the toilet... lovely... it was funny though. Poor Peteee.

Sunday, Day 6... Jindabyne
We met Shane from Sydney in the afternoon at the Banjo and he had a hot tip that Horse Number 8 in Race 6 at Kalgoorlie was a sure-thing, so we all put bets on... guess what, it lost. After he left we got stalked by some crazy old men who somehow had it in their heads that not only Shendelle and I wanted to talk to them, but their "token single friend" needed a tour guide when he was in Perth. They ruined the afternoon. Took over the good table we had at the pub, and forced us to leave to go across the road to the Bowl-O. We ended up at the LJ once again, and discovered that Sunday nights in Jindi suck.

Monday, Day 7... Jindabyne to Canberra to Melbourne... Shendelle to Perth, Mop to Hobart
We discovered it was so very hard to say goodbye. Geoff kindly drove us to Canberra at 6:00am (thanks babes, luv ya). First thing we did when we got to Melbourne was go to McDonalds. Thanks for everything boys, had a great time, will miss you xxx