Being Australian, you have to seek out snow intentionally especially in Melbourne. We could tell if there was snow in them there hills by the icy chill that chased us outdoors, but the actual flakes stayed away and only inhabited certain parts of the land like an exclusive club.
My First Encounter With Snow
At 15, I flew to Minnesota as an exchange student and snow greeted me on arrival at my host town, or delayed it. We couldn’t fly into the local airport, so deplaned and caught a bus to where I was going to stay. This is what I learned in a very short time:
- That lovely white snow hits hard when molded into a snowball avoid where possible,
- It is soooo cold,
- Don’t try and walk on iced roads, while trying to save yourself you will flail arms and legs and finally fail to stay upright.
- Walk in snow drifts for safety, even if they are deep.
- Hot chocolate (with marshmallows) is your best friend and ditto with snowmobile suits,
- Snowmobiling is the best fun, especially when someone who knows how to drive is in control.
That year was my only white Christmas ever and it was magical. The host family lived on top of a hill overlooking the Mississippi river, that totally froze in winter (yay ice fishing). There were five young kids from across the globe, all adopted with some type of challenge or disability, and they had loads of traditions. They made sure I felt like a part of the family.
We cut our own tree, that stood tall in the panoramic living room next to the baby grand piano. We drank egg nogs as we decorated the tree and spent Christmas day at the family farm. My host dad had 18 brothers and sisters, soooo many people. Santa arrived with presents on a snowmobile with a trailer behind stacked high, and the children squealed with joy.
It was a magical time for me from a small family in Melbourne.
Skiing Was a Trap
We had a group of exchange students from around the world that would meet every couple of months, and we met to ski on a pig farm in Iowa. We had students from Sweden and Germany and they were helping us with the basics of cross country skiing.
Skiing requires balance, something I still havent made friends with, for me the lessons were a disaster. Funny but still a disaster. I managed to strap on the skis, and stand. Now for some reason I was facing the wrong way so they showed me how to turn around.
Now these skis were super long and hard to maneuver. I turned one ski across the other and got stuck. I couldn’t move. So I started laughing, this was ridiculous, and the more I laughed the harder it was to stand. So I stopped trying. I stopped trying not to fall and let it happen and fell back into a massive snowdrift.
We were all laughing by this point. The guys were older and they lifted me up and out of the snow and we went inside for hot chocolate. Never went skiing again.
When It Snowed In Summer
Then there was that last time in Melbourne. My partner C loved to getaway for weekends, and this was a summer break where the snowfields were in winter, at Mt Buller. Looking forward to a relaxing weekend, we were a little worried because the weather forecast was super strange, we went anyway. But it was summer, and a warm break was what we needed.
By the time we got to the base of the mountain, we wanted to hire chains in case of snow, the air was icy and heavy. The dude at the servo we stopped at refused to give us chains, we went anyway we were in a 4×4.
By the time we reached the resort it was a full on blizzard, and inches of snow on the ground while Melbourne sweltered in Summer temperatures. It was bizarre. There were very few people there that weekend. We sat in front of a roaring fire eating food and chatting with the other guests, all stuck there.
Or watched the snow from the balcony of our room making the surrounds look very pretty like a winter wonderland. It was a magical weekend, not the one we planned but the one the universe served us.
People didn’t believe us when we drove back to the city, but it was real and one of those weekends when the world goes away and a moment is captured in time.
Peace Out