A UNIQUE EXPERIENCE

 

 

To celebrate Chris's birthday we decided to go skiing in South Africa.  Our friends Ken and Antoinette decided to come with us and made the trip so much fun, especially as Antoinette had not seen snow since the 1970s when she visited Switzerland and Ken had never seen it before.

 

After 10 or 11 hours on the road, we arrived in Rhodes where we sent the night in a guest house.  Good food but it was blooming cold there.  Luckily they had provided electric blankets which were wonderful after all those hours stuck in the car.

 

Rhodes really did seem to be the back of beyond.  Food etc there had to come from Barkley East which was over an hour away - and supplies then had to go for almost another hour to get to Tiffindell.  Often they were taken by tractor which must have taken even longer.  This was no place to run out of necessities!

 

The next morning we headed off along the worst road I have ever travelled.  Rocky, hairpin bends, sheer drops with the added bonus of cattle, sheep and the odd donkey to navigate from time to time.

  

Well, we knew there wasn't going to be a lot of snow at the resort but our first view of Tiffindell made us laugh our socks off.  We did know that the high season hadn't begun and that there had been little natural snow so we would be restricted to the artificial pistes but even so...

 

 

Yes, it's there, can you see it?



We decided that we probably would be spending a lot of time in the bar as there didn't seem to be a lot of potential for skiing!!

As we got closer it didn't look quite so bad.

 

We arrived around 9am and were offered a tot of OBS [sherry, for those of you who don't know] to keep the cold out.  After going to our rooms and dumping our stuff we went to collect our ski gear.  I was so impressed that Ken was going to take up skiing for the first time.

 

Don't we look professional!!

 

Well, as soon as we could Chris and I left Ken practising his snowplough and did a few practice runs before heading up the one sole half-decent piste where we found it was the opening day of the highest pub in South Africa.  Cue for more OBS.

 

 

 

 

On top of the world!

View from the top of the run

 

 While we were having little tots of OBS, Ken was having his first ever ski lesson.

 

 

 

 

While Ken was mastering the basics, Chris was busy pulling his hamstring - not by his sophisticated skiing technique but by leaning over to get on the button lift!!  Not a good end to the first day.

 

Anyway we headed to the bar for a 'Meet and Greet'  and to celebrate with the birthday boy.

 

 







He was SO happy, beer, football and then......







 

CAKE!

A disturbed night as the wind was very strong but luckily we were so exhausted we didn't care.  Day 2 the weather had taken a turn for the worse.  The wind was vicious and there was little sunshine.  We had a ski lesson, which was brilliant and we both felt we'd made loads of progress. We skied without poles for the first time ever and it was great.  I got a bit overconfident and hit a barrier and somersaulted over it.   Chris said he didn't photograph it as he was too busy laughing!!  I don't think Ken's lessons were going so well, despite some additional private tuition from Chris.

There was a cabaret in the bar that evening but after dinner and a game of Chess, Chris was ready to crash out and so was I.  So asleep by 9pm.

Day 3 the weather was beautiful again.  Ken announced his retirement from skiing and went for a hike over the mountain.  I took the plunge and tried snowblades for the first time.  Shorter, less stable but faster on steep slopes.  I really loved them. 

 

Unfortunately the button lift on the 'big' piste was broken for most of the day so I was sharing the nursery slopes with loads of children.

Snowblading

 

 

I took some videos of Chris with his new sophisticated skiing technique - but I can't upload them here.  Eventually terminal boredom set in and I gave up for the day, sat in the coffee bar and chopped up a big bit of biltong to share around.

Biltong chopper

After Chess, dinner and football on the TV we crashed exhausted into bed again.  Just as well as we were packed, breakfasted and checked out my 7.30.  We battled the biting wind to get our cases down to the car and headed off again down the world's worst road.  Another long and tedious journey but we were all a lot more subdued than on the outward journey.

 

Collapsed exhausted into bed before 9 o'clock [again!].  A long way to go for 3 days but a lovely trip!