Snowboarding in Mt Hotham

The next Friday we flew back to Melbourne and drove up to Mt Hotham (4h north-east of Melbourne).
[Actually I drove up with a couple of friends but without Ian. After we booked all our flights Ian noticed that he forgot about a wedding of a very good friend. So he flew straight back to Perth for one day and returned to Melbourne just after the wedding finished. Crazy guy!]

It snowed when we arrived at Mt Hotham late at night and we were happy! But it just snowed 3cm and they had spring conditions as well – icy in the morning and slushy in the afternoon. Only 1 blue (middle) run and 2 green (easy) runs were opened. And because the snow depth wasn’t that great there were little rocks and grass patches all over the place.

I couldn’t resist and I bought myself a fancy red lady’s snowboard in Queenstown (NZ). So I am boarding down the green run avoiding all bloody beginners who might graze my new snowboard. Then I saw this black rock sticking out of the snow in front of me. I couldn’t avoid it anymore so I decided to fall rather than scratch my board…. bad decision… I fell on one arm only and tore my left shoulder muscles. It really hurt and I had to pause for a couple of minutes. I decided to finish this run and see a doctor as the pain didn’t go away.
And, well, there was this other much bigger rock in front of me… I couldn't avoid it and this time I didn’t try to fall - my should still hurt…. now I have this massive big scratch right in the middle of my new snowboard…. I was fed up and frustrated!

I didn’t snowboard after that because of several reasons – my shoulder (it takes 1-2 weeks until the muscles are healed completely), my snowboard (didn’t wanna risk more major scratches on those crappy runs) and because it was quite expensive. They reduced the lift passes by $8 but it still cost $79 per day (50€) with only 3 runs open… I reckon this is much too much!

Anyway we had a great time! It was really quite a relaxing holiday. We played cards and solved Sudokus and went for walks in the spring weather (up to 13°C on top of the mountain!)