Our first “day” was a rather long one, starting at 5:30pm on Sunday evening with the bus to Perth, plane to Melbourne (a huge 747), bus to Mt Buller, and taxi to our accommodation, finally finishing at Ivor Whittaker Lodge at 1:30pm Monday afternoon!
The day had many interesting occurrences, such as a lost iPod, jocks being spilled across the car park, excellent pizza, “Hells Corner”, the first sight of snow, dardy beanies, illegal snowball fights, and falling asleep during the safety presentation from Snow Patrol (due to tiredness, not boredom).
Tuesday started our regular schedule of ski lessons at 9am until 11, lunch at 12 at ABOM, and back to the accommodation by 4pm. The students were split into two groups, which equated to the beginners and the experienced/adventurous. We didn’t make it onto the chair lifts by the end of the lesson, but lots of fun was had going as fast as possible in the small slope we had already skied on.
Events involved Mr Gaudin running into a snow making machine, Josh and Jacob doing tumble turns in the snow, Ben and Trent building snow men, “face prints” in the snow, and the first sanctioned snow ball fight, pillow fights (between the boys), and video games in evening at the Whitt.
Wednesday resulted in an incredibly uncoordinated Miss Gooding being unable to get up after falling over without the help of the ski instructor, cool Eskimo snowboarding girls, a scenic chair lift ride to the snow tubes, bumper snow tubes, watching 5 year olds do slalom races, and some skiing of course – with the experiences/adventurous group having their first ski down the Blue Bullet and Holden Express slopes.
Thursday saw the beginner group getting onto the Blue Bullet and Holden Express slopes, with a few stacks as the chair lifts are not as easy as they look with skis on. Students were being very indifferent about another sanctioned snow ball fight until they discovered Miss Clark and Miss Gooding would be involved, and boy did they move! It was also our last night at the Whitt and some silly awards were given for clothing and actions during the week so far.
Friday was our last ski lesson, and disaster with lunch as Miss Gooding couldn’t find the lunch passes, but everyone was understanding and disappeared to go get pizza which was much better than at ABOM anyway. After lunch it was back to the Whitt to get our luggage, load up the taxis and then the bus, and finally catch the bus back to Melbourne. We arrived at Batman’s Hill Hotel at about 5:30 and managed to get across the road for dinner and some shopping at Spencer St Direct Factory Outlet by 6:30. Almost everyone returned to the hotel with a brand new pair of Converse runners.
Saturday was a full day with a morning at the Queen Victoria Markets, the afternoon at the zoo, then bowling in the evening. A few students even managed to get a “turkey” which is apparently three strikes in a row.
Finally Sunday arrived and it was time to go home. Many of the students had their most exciting part of the trip as the Melbourne Storm (rugby) and Sydney Swans teams were in front of us in the group check in. We departed Melbourne at 10:40am in a much smaller plane (767), with our incredibly kind and thoughtful students organising with the flight crew and pilot to thank the teachers over the PA system on the plane prior to landing. Back onto the bus and to home to Katanning by 6pm – a very full and very fun seven days!
A huge thankyou to Mr Robin Dark and Mr Frank Gaudin for attending and helping to supervise, and also to all the 30 wonderful students who attended. We had a great time and hope you did too!
Miss Kate Gooding & Miss Felicity Tyrrell-Clark