Back to the snow!

It’s been a few years since we’ve been to the snow, mostly because of Covid and the border closures between NSW and Victoria. So when we decided to do a trip again we thought, why not visit a place we haven’t been to before, well Dinner Plain it is then!

For this trip we also had an extra guest with Xander bring a school friend along, however our newest family member (Toby the dog) didn’t get to come along as we believed that we weren’t allowed to bring dogs (later we found out that dogs are welcomed at Dinner Plain so next time he’ll come along as well).

This was the first time that we travelled to Dinner Plain and had to drive past Mount Hotham to get here. The main different in the drive between Falls Creek and Mount Hotham is that the former takes you to the bottom of the mountain and then you have to catch a lift to the top. With Mount Hotham however, you drive to the top of the mountain and then start skiing downwards. This means that when driving there you have some great views of the mountain but also you are exposed to the elements.

We had an easy drive up the mountain, with clear skies and beautiful views and reached Mount Hotham without issues. We didn’t have a day pass for Mount Hotham however so we couldn’t stop at all and just kept driving through (and yes, they have cameras that check how long you stay for in the area, if you stop for too long, you get a nice fine in the mail).

Upon arrival to Dinner Plain we realised that the main slope was only open for skiing for the first half of the day so we had to utilise the smaller slope next to it for our toboggans which didn’t bother the kids and they had lots of fun. 

Now, I thought that it would be a great idea to send the drone up and get some amazing footage from above. I checked the wind and even though I noticed some wind, I figured that the wind was a lot stronger along the Great Barrier Reef trip we did and I flew the drone there without a problem. Well, you can probably guess where this is going… the start of it went well but then I started to notice that the drone wasn’t responding properly and wouldn’t return to me. I changed the speed to the max and it still wouldn’t return to me. At this stage, I’m not going to lie, I started to panic a bit and kept looking for a spot to land, however I had nothing but trees below me. In the end, I ran out of battery and the drone went crashing somewhere. 

Well, all I knew was that it had landed around 900 metres from me so off I went on a hike in the snow. However, even thought I had an approximate location where it last broadcasted from, this was from the ski and the wind could have taken it anywhere. I spent a good amount of time looking for it but was unsuccessful in finding it. It’s an expensive lesson and next time, I’ll just crash the drone so I can find it as that would have cost me less to replace.

Anyway, back to the tobogganing… I returned to Suz and the kids and we all had a few trips down the big slopes once it was opened to us which was great fun (Xander and his friend kept going up and down all afternoon and had to be told when we were leaving).

Our trip down the mountain was a bit more exciting that the one up, the snow and fog had fallen upon us and we couldn’t see more than 5-10 metres ahead of us. Plus, we had to put chains on our car which was a first for us. However a few kilometres down the road we were allowed to take the chains off and the rest of the trip was very smooth. 

We allowed for a short stop in Bright where we stopped at the local brewery for some food and drink before we returned back home. It was a long day with lots of driving and a few exciting moments however we all really enjoyed ourselves and can’t wait to return to Dinner Plain (with our dog Toby next time).