The mountain has claimed its first catch of the day. My 10-year-old son is face first in the safety net, flailing like an expiring trout in a tangle of skis and poles. A mother’s first instinct is to rush to her child. Always. But I have my own problems. I’m down slope and sliding helplessly backwards with each dig of my ski poles.
In less than a minute, the boy child is disentangled and upright, skis clicked back on, streaking down the snow. I know somewhere beneath that gobstopper helmet and Louie the Fly goggles is a smile. The kid is having the time of his life.
We’re a passionate travelling family. We have a caravan and my three kids have explored more of Australia – beaches, mountains, red dirt – than most dinkum-Aussie adults. But we’re usually chasing the sun; our travels measured in bottles of sunscreen, volumes of sand in togs and cones of ice-cream.
We’re not a “ski family”. I wouldn’t say we’re scared of the white stuff (OK, maybe a little), but we’ve never cracked the winter sports sanctum. And yet here we are, at Falls Creek – Victoria’s largest ski resort – looking the part in our Aldi thermals and rented outer layers. It doesn’t matter that it’s only the second time my kids have clapped eyes on snow. Fake it ’til you make it.
Falls Creek is almost five hours’ drive north-east of Melbourne in Victoria’s Alpine National Park. Stand on the summit of the alps’ tallest peaks, and you can see across the border to Mount Kosciuszko. We’ve come to Falls because it’s one of the state’s best ski resorts for newbies, with 80 per cent of the terrain rated beginner to intermediate, including the innocuously named Wombat’s Ramble – Australia’s longest green run at 2.2 kilometres.
Its après scene is cosy and understated. If this skiing caper goes belly up, all-day après is my back-up plan.
Falls is also a family-friendly resort. The village primary school is testament to the generations of kids who have grown up here, skiing almost before they could walk. It’s also a bit bougie. A European ski-resort dupe with its ski-in, ski-out, wintry gingerbread-house feels, Falls doesn’t have the thumping nightlife of, say, Mount Buller. Its après scene is cosy and understated. If this skiing caper goes belly up, all-day après is my back-up plan.
Booking lessons is a good start. We meet our instructor Macca (aka Mark McDonald) at Mouse Trap, the baby of baby ski runs at the top of Halley’s Comet chairlift. We’re in good hands. Macca has been skiing since he was six (three years too late to qualify for the Winter Olympics, he reckons) and has a decades-long CV that reads like a powder hound’s almanac – Italy, Austria, Japan, USA …
Macca has us practising snow ploughs (skis in a V to stop), parallel-ski manoeuvres and turns. Bend knees, stand straight, big toe pressure, little toe pressure, knees apart. The kids get it, and he sends them swooshing down the mountain so he can focus on the two floundering adults.
Off the slopes, there are winter joys we hadn’t anticipated. Like the pleasure of easing sore limbs into a steaming hot tub, where we poach like dumplings on our apartment balcony. It’s enjoying a quiet glass of red wine while the inexhaustible third-born scoots down a hill on a toboggan in the fading twilight.
Then there’s the après proper. You haven’t seen childhood glee until you’ve watched a trio of soft drink-silly siblings ogle fireworks fizzing over snowfields while they inhale popcorn, courtesy of the Gondola bar at the Frying Pan Inn. One night, the kids disappear at dinner to play in snow that’s accumulated like cappuccino froth on the tables outside the restaurant. They gambol like excitable husky pups through powder and slush. A snow fight ensues. Our eldest daughter cradles a slab of ice that could build an igloo of Giza. They return to the table rosy cheeked, hands stinging. My son has eaten so much – and is having so much fun – he doesn’t want ice-cream. That. Has. Never. Happened.
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The weekend disappears in a whirlwind of downhill dashes – and crashes – snow play and hot chocolates, cupped between thawing hands at Cloud 9 restaurant at the top of Halley’s Comet. On our last night, we visit the lounge at Astra Falls Creek – awarded the Best Boutique Ski Hotel in Australia for 10 consecutive years. We snuggle on leather couches with cosy throws, drinking cocktails while the kids toast marshmallows on the fire with mini pitchforks.
My son is babbling something about the snow. “In eight years [when I’m a grown up], I want to work as a skier,” he says, matter of factly. I’ve heard this declaration before. Only the last time we were in Byron learning to surf, and he wanted to be a pro surfer.
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