20 years!

Since I married this beautiful French girl...

And more than 2 since we were last in France since the pandemic began.

The flights and travel were actually really smooth, and we had a lovely catch up with most of the cousins in Lille, before a lovely couple of days in Touquet. Marie-Laure and I then caught the train to Paris to a sexy boutique hotel in Pigalle which used to be a brothel!

Lots of wonderful walks, meals, and art and exhibitions, including an interesting few hours in Christies. Then a sensational dinner in Le Boutary to celebrate twenty wonderful years together.    

 

Ski Troutaineering, opening weekend

Last week's storm meant one of the best ever starts to our fickle Australian ski season, with most of the mountain's trails set to open. 

There was also still snow down to low altitudes, and after a solid season of trountainbiking, Baz and I felt the need to raise the bar a little.
With fishing season drawing to a close on Monday of the long weekend, the possibility of catching a trout on skis presented a rare opportunity. To his credit and enthusiasm, Baz had to dig through nearly a metre of snow to get down to worm terrain the night before, and then rig our rods. 
We headed off on touring skis in the dark, hitting the upper Victoria by sunrise.
We got some beautiful light, and there were heaps of birds and beasts about. Lots of deer.
Anyway, a few smaller fry, not enough for a feed and it didn’t seem fair to keep any of them anyway before they laid their roe. And it didn’t matter because it was all too beautiful, and we were content enough with the morning, the hike out, and the proof of concept which we convinced ourselves was an Oz first.

We had some great skiing (minus the girls), some awesome meals, a bit of table tennis, some small ski tours out from DP with the dog, and it was nice to light the fire and settle down in front of it, as well as the usual Opening Weekend fireworks and festivities.

 

Western Arthurs Traverse A to K. Day 2

Woke to a perfect day.
Even though this was supposed to be our ‘rest day’, you réalise pretty quickly just how slow going the traverse is. Up down, up down, and lots of scrambling and pack yoga. What normally takes an hour, takes 4 and sometimes more.
Half the day was spent scrambling around Mount Hayes where Peter Dombrovskis died.
We had a swim in Square Lake which was stupid freezing.
Even though the photos of Lake Oberon are almost cliché, there’s nothing like seeing it for real and in beautiful light.
We stayed watching for almost an hour before the long and treacherous descent down to the campsite.
Because our next day’s decisions were so dependent on weather, I ran back up to Mt Orion for a weather report.
There was still quite a bit of snow up on the summit, and I stayed up there for ages photographing the changing light before some heavy cloud and rain suddenly came through, then a a quick descent back for dinner with the crew in bleaker conditions.

With the next couple of days looking like holding weather wise (and After a round of schnapps), we were all in very good spirits. Oberon is traditionally the point of deciding on whether to continue along the 2 most challenging stretches of the traverse, or to return back along the ( safer) way and back down moraine A.

Even though no rain was forecast, everything got saturated overnight.

That’s how the Western Arthurs are.