Snowvember

Crazy beautiful Snowvember yesterday up on the Baw Baw Plateau. Left Melbourne 0400 and was putting chains on by 0600 at 1100m asl. Usual roadside wonderland that only BB delivers, from the mountain ash, tree-ferns, and beech forests, up into snow gum and alpine tea tree.

Was planning on heading out to Mt Saint Gwinear, but had a first run on Maltese Falcon, and whilst describing November snow in Australia as 'powder' is possibly even illegal, it was pretty fast and silky smooth under foot.

Decided to ski until the snow turned, or my legs gave way. 20 runs and 22km later, the snow finally warmed, but by this time I'd clocked all of BBs trails and only seen a couple of other people heading out on XCs. Best snow of the season!

An extraordinary day for winter, even more so with summer less than 2 weeks away.

 

Port Phillip

We brought the Zodiac back to Melbourne for a service and to try and nab a few snapper.

Had a nice day out with Bruce and his boy, getting a mix of flatty, pinky and squid down towards point Cook, then Baz and I had another morning out on Melbourne Cup day with not much to show for it except a meeting with a baby seal.

Then a cracking evening with dad along for the ride where we got a tonne of pinky and a few more flatties at our preferred spot off Altona, and also scored a cracking sunset. So nice to be out and about on the Bay, but the elusive snapper still awaits!

 

The Hunt for White October 2021

This year's HFWO was a pretty low key affair, and as we were still in lockdown we weren't really allowed. However we got a call from Alistair our new neighbour to say that a tree had fallen on the back deck, so needed to get up for urgent repairs.

We passed through amazing flash floods in Traralgon on Thursday arvo, which turned to snow as we rounded the corner to DP. Friday morning was very pretty, and Chockie and I went a long run though fresh snow to Room With a View, and then Dead Timber Hill.

In the afternoon, Balti and I did a bit of troutainbiking down to the upper Vic River. we got a couple of tiddlers for catch and release, and the light was very pretty, with sun, rainbows and snow-showers. Then back to the fire, a movie, and a super yummy spaghetti bolognese cooked by Baz. 

Next morning saw another few cents of snow up on the hill, with cold and feral winds. Whilst the snow was slow old superglue requiring liberal lashings of wax (and pretty challenging on teles), it was still nice to be skiing this late into October.

We got a nice line down HV with the dog, and then a slow trudge back up to the car for the long haul back to Melbourne.