Front beach at Trial Bay, South West Rocks (NSW, Australia)
It was midway through 2019 (before all this craziness started with Covid19 and impromptu travel was a normal part of our lives) and my son told me he was going to take a week off work and go snowboarding.
I had flashbacks to the many winters I'd spent working in the snow, skiing every day, and a plan began to form in my mind. Within 48 hours I'd talked to my partner and we'd happily agreed on a plan to join him. She was just as keen as I was, since she too had worked in the snow and loved skiing. She also agreed that it sounded sensible to make sure my then 20 year old wasn't on the mountain on his own every day. And since it was easy to justify getting a week off work, the paperwork was filed and the search for accommodation began.
Of course, as devoted parkrun tourists we needed to work out which parkruns we'd go to so as to make sure our accommodation and driving days matched our Saturday morning ritual. This saw us staying at South West Rocks on the drive south, skiing for the week and then returning home. This ticked multiple boxes for us: we got to visit new places, go two new parkruns and we got a week of skiing, alone, together and with my son.
Trial Bay Gaol Beach, South West Rocks (NSW)It was a long drive for us to get to the Australian ski fields, so after the first day of driving we immediately headed to the beach at our campground to have a rest.When Caroline couldn't sleep she did some yoga instead.The Historical Trail Bay Gaol (right near where we were staying) opened in 1886 after 13 years of construction and closed again in 1918. It's now open to the public for viewing purposes.After our nap we did a short walk up to see the Smokey Cape Light House.While it's a long drive to get from our home in South East Queensland to the snow fields in the south west of New South Wales, having the car means we could see so much great stuff along the way. Any of the coastal trips like this one are always worth the effort of the long driving days.This was our set up for the night; a swag that we shared at the campground which was inside Arakoon National Park. In late August it was fairly mild during the day and cool at night.The next day, Saturday, we went to the parkrun at South West Rocks as planned. Officially known as Horseshoe Bay Reserve parkrun, we were delighted to find a small crowd and I was able to be the first finisher in 22 mins 30 seconds.We loved this parkrun. The locals were friendly, the path was easy to follow and there was a beach right next door.The parkrun start line was just 7 minutes drive from the Trial Bay Goal campground where we slept in the swag the night before. This made the rather pleasant campground a super convenient spot to stay the night before this 7am parkrun. What made it even better was that we were on route to an even bigger goal: a week of skiing together. After another overnight stop in Sydney to see Caroline's family, we continued our drive south. We had a quick stop for a bit of lunch at Mt Ainslie. At this point we were driving through the A.C.T. (its own territory, separate from the state of New South Wales though contained within it). Canberra is the name of the city within the territory and it's basically Australia's purpose-built capital city.Our first day of skiing, in early September - a beautiful late spring season bluebird day.Meal break with my son at the bottom of Front Valley (Perisher).We covered a lot of snow-covered ground in 5 days and had mostly great spring weather but we also faced some bitterly cold winds on top of Mt Perisher. At one point we were sitting on chair lifts as the snow began to fall, making it a near whiteout day.This was about as high as we got. We got so lucky with the weather and had epic views across the mountains.So many different trails to explore! (Ski trail map from PerisherBlue.com) These snow gums (a type of Eucalyptus tree) covered much of the mountain. They're one of the only trees that can grow this high up with the weather this area gets every year.On our last day of skiing we decided to go for a short hike to check out Rainbow Lake. Sections of it were frozen over and it started to lightly snow while we were out there, so we had to hurry back to make sure we didn't lose the path!Caroline is a fan of cold water immersion and was keen to find an out-of-the-way stop for a quick dip. I was not so keen on the idea of going in myself, as it was getting late in the afternoon and the weather was closing in. So while she stripped off her warm clothes and got in the very, very cold creek, I stayed on the edge thinking that one of us should stay warm and dry just in case anything went wrong.
With a forecast of probable rain and possible snow, with up to 45km an hour winds, we really didn’t know if we’d be able to sleep at all. But at 8pm, with the car set up as a back-up, we bravely entered our double swag and got as comfortable as we could. Somehow, despite the massively strong gusts of wind that made the entire swag shake and rattle we got some sleep.With the sun shining it might look warm but the wind chill had it pretty cold for us Aussies. I've never worn this much clothing during a parkrun before then, or since!
The scenery was beautiful on this mostly concrete course as it hugs the side of the massive Lake Jindabyne almost the entire way.
And at 8am, under the trusty eye of Erin the Run Director and her resilient team of volunteers, 10 of us took off from Banjo Paterson Park to attempt this double out and back (with a funky loop) course in temperatures hovering just over 0’C (-3'C with the wind chill!). At the pointy end, a new female course record was set by the only person to beat me whilst at the tail end we had one woman drop out after feeling like “one lap was enough this morning!” leaving a grand total of 9 participants in the run, including the volunteer Tail Walker.And with the coldest run in our parkrun journey done, we finally had a letter "J" for our parkrun alphabet.
Then it was time for the long drive home again, where we discussed, amongst other things, when our next ski trip would be.
