Update - December 18

Here's just a quick report to sum up a few weeks of my travels. Nick Almoukov and I left Australia on 12th November headed for Tauplitz, Austria. Things started off pretty well. I wasn't in the best of shape after a not-so-ideal preparation, but there was 5km of snow at 1600m and we had a cool apartment just by the tracks. There were heaps of teams there training in preparation for two FIS races. After 2 days of good skiing we awoke to 11C and rain, which lasted for the following 4 days and as the snow disappeared so too did the other teams, until it was just us. Just in case anyone goes there in summer, the running is pretty good. For some reason we didn't consider that the race would be cancelled until we received a phone call from Rawkus saying 'I hope you guys know that the race was cancelled a few days ago'. So off we went to Liezen in search of an internet café to suss out where the snow was in Europe. On the way we side tracked a bit and took our 2WD 4WDing across a river, found a derelict castle and walked up a closed off canyon which was awesome! No luck searching for places in Europe with snow. It looked like it was about 15-20C everywhere and raining. For some reason we just decided to jump in the car and head towards Salzburg. After deciding that I was here to ski and not too run, we pulled over at Bad Reichenhall and bought a ticket on the 2am ferry from Sassnitz (GER) to Trelleborg (SWE). Driving at an average speed of XXkm/h [censored] over the speed limit it would take us 10hrs to get there, but we only had 8hrs. …… we made it with a bit of time spare. We had no accommodation booked and weren't really sure where we were headed but the snow in Scandinavia looked good on the TV. Norway sounded like a cool place to go to, so off we drove, and kept driving until 10pm at night just south of Norway where we stayed the night in the equivalent of a tree house. But it was -13C and at least a metre of snow, so I was really happy anyway.

After a ski at Lillehammer we ended up moving in to a hut in Gaalaa, which even had a dishwasher! They had 5km of lit trails, as it was dark by 4am, but on a few occasions we decided to go 'black light' night skiing on some other trails where it was almost pitch black. It is such a cool adrenalin rush sitting in a classic track booting down a windy downhill not being able to see anything at all. On one occasion Nick happened to mention a few stories about the hunting and killing tactics of wolves. Black light skiing ended after that session. The 10 days of skiing with 630km of trails in Norway was sensational! Then it was race time. Caught up with Duano [Duane Butcher, who has been based in Norway since October] which was hilarious, and then proceeded to get spanked in the classic sprint, which was not so hilarious. The following day was a 10km skate, which went a bit better but still not fantastic. It was good to get the first races out of the way but woooahhh man I've got some serious training days ahead. We'd worked out that if the race was over by at midday then we had 10hrs to get back to southern Sweden to catch the ferry at 10:30pm, which arrived in Sassnitz at 3am and then we had 7 hours to get to Munich to meet Circa and Rawkus [Andrew Circosta and Matt O'Rourke] at 10am. Tight but feasible. After a midday race start, lots of ice on the road and a few traffic jams, things got exciting. Conversations generally consisted of 'Okay Nick, we've got 4 hours to go and 600km. Based on that we have to drive at ……' , 'So I guess that means no toilet stops hey. Uh oh, that 2 litres of water I drank an hour ago is starting to kick!' or 'Um, 30mins to go and 90km and wer're not on the Autobahn anymore Toto'. Needless to say, Nick is an awesome driver and we got there with a whole 4mins to spare!!! Travel was a bit cruisier to Munich, and a coffee at 2am on the ferry helped keep us awake through the small hours.

Then it was Auf Wiedersehen to Nick who is now in Russia. I really wish he was here now, but I'll get to catch up with him and the other NSW guys briefly in January. Until then I'll be hitting the trails with Circa, Rawkus and Mocky [Andrew Mock, who arrives at the end of December] which should be good.

Strangely enough long drive times don't phase me anymore. We have an 8hr drive to Czech coming up on Thursday. Hmmmm…. Could almost drive it return in one day…