Mt Buller revisited 5.0

Started writing this a few weeks ago but could not add much beyond the title, am happy finally am able to pen my thoughts down. Completed by fifth trip to Mt Buller on the first week of July. It not only was it an good break to transition myself from one project to another but it was one of my best weekend getaways.

It started on Friday afternoon, i told my boss that i need to leave around 2pm for my Mt Buller trip. He asked me to leave @ 12pm, may him and his tribe live long. I was the only person with a valid licence or you could say i was the only guy who was keen on driving so picked up a Kia Carnival and started our trip. I was a bit tired but was able to drive to Mansfield with a single break, the drive was nice and i kind of liked the car, it was new, spacious and powerful.After having pizza there, and picking up some of the rental snow gears we started our journey to Mt Buller Village. As usual we picked up the snow chains which we knew we will never use.We reached the village around 8 pm, parked the car and then picked up a taxi for our apartment.

Entrance of our apartment, nice and cosy

The taxi driver welcomed us to Mt Buller and started sharing the details of his trip to India and finally told something which broke our hearts. He said that we had come at a good time, tomorrow will be a nice warm sunny day. We were like we have driven 4 hrs, planned overnight stays and were so hopeful to come to snow with the expectation of snow fall. He suggested it is better to ski in a sunny clear day and he was correct. Our apartment was beautiful 3 bedroom apartment which could sleep 8 people. We quickly picked up our beds, i got the preference as i was the official driver.While my friends were enjoying Chivas, I was a bit tired so took a paracetamol drink and slept off.


Day 1, Saturday was fun as our group woke up late and got ready just in time when the restaurants stop taking orders for breakfast. However, a bunch of us decided to ski and take some lesson in the 1:30 pm slot. Though this was my fifth trip to Mt Buller, this is the only trip where i had some time, 3 of them were day trips and one of them was a day trip which turned into a weekend trip. So after some brunch option we went to the ski hire shop to hire the skis. The ski gear was cool and my ski was called rambo but the fun began when they got my ski shoes, it was a size smaller and  i begged them for a size bigger but they would not listen. The guy told me ski shoes are not for fashion they should be uncomfortable as they prevent foot injuries. I didnt have a choice so wore those shoes and picked up rambo and my skis and ski poles. I could not forget those ski boots, it felt like i was a prisoner and i had a heavy metal ball tied to my leg.I had bargained with the ski hire person that we would ski during the night and return the equipment the next morning. I now started feeling that is not going to be the case.


Finally, after a lot of struggle picked myself up and reached the area where the class was supposed to begin. The instructor was a cool guy, he taught the basics very well and within no time i was enjoying to ski. The only problem i had was to slow down or stop, which i would most often end up on the ground. I fell around 10 times during the class then i would not say i became an expert, i just stopped counting. I fell in all directions but somehow finished the two hour class, i finally gave up and removed my ski's and started my descend to the hire shop. One of the toughest journey's my ski shoes were killing me and finally i felt like a free bird when my ski shoes were removed.

Nice warm sunny day @ Mt Buller

For dinner while my friends were cooking chicken for dinner, my veg friend cooked veg stew which was wonderful and then had a glass of Chivas. Then sat down to watch the Wimbledon ladies final, was tough to see Serena winning but Radwanska gave some fight before Serena finished it off.

Sunday woke up a bit late checked out the apartment and after loading our luggages came back to the village after which we had our brunch and started for the sightseeing tour in the chair lifts and finally we went for tobogganing, i have a good experience in this sport. So finally after enjoying 2-3 hours in the toboggan, we started our return journey. The drive was again pretty good and we made it in a little over 3 hours.

Tobogganing - awesome fun 

To summarise, a great weekend trip will definitely try snow boarding and may be skiing next time as well, a lovely drive and i was a dead man on monday unable to walk straight.