The End of One Season Merely Means the Beginning of the Next

Hardly 3 months have gone by since I arrived in Jindabyne and it is already time to leave. That was quite different to my usual experiences in a variety of ways; many hard to describe. For the better part of the season, weather in town was quite mild. Tshirts, skateboards and open windows ran rife while the wind up top made skin coverage a necessity.

Beautiful Girls concerts and a real melting pot of instructors on the hill. Austria, Switzerland, Slovenia, Sweden, Czech, Australia, New Zealand, Scotland, The US, Finland; you name it. Doing a season in Australia is, in many ways, very different to what I had expected.

At first glance I could not figure out why people kept coming back year after year; comparatively poor snow conditions, low pay, no guaranteed hours, employee perks few and far between... so why come back then?

It took me the better part of the season to figure it out but it's the people and the atmosphere that keep people coming back. The energy that the culture brings to the place can be felt all around you and why? I can't really answer that but at a guess I'd say it's because that's the only way to get by. Why are the Irish and Jews such famous comedians? Some say it's because they've had a pretty crappy time of it. Maybe that's the case here as well. Because the quality of life is not served up on a silver platter you have to look for it- perhaps that makes it so much more satisfying when it's found.

The house parties were excellent and when there was a sunny day down in town you appreciated taking a soccer ball and a few beers down by the lake. It felt good and the feelings were mutual. In a way it also served to cull the weak. If you could make it through an employer season after season they way Perisher treated you? You had to have a strong and positive personality or you'd get eaten alive. Frankly I didn't make it through easily. The word stubbornness rather than perseverence springs to mind.

We certainly found ways to keep ourselves entertained. When we weren't trying new stuff in the park or building craggy little jumps in between the trees; we were making funky photos with our camera, playing poker, hitting the skate park, learning card tricks or sneaking in to local resorts' trampoline facility to practice our inverted skills. You know; typically productive behavior of any good 26 year old.

More than anything; being around some pretty good photographers is slowly teaching me a thing or two about using this semi-SLR camera of mine. I've come a long way since David's 17th birthday present. Although giving it some thought I'm pretty sure he just bought me that in the hope that I'd take pictures of girls. What was he thinking?

It was sad to leave but exciting at the same time. I've lined up a few weeks in Perth, a wakeboarding trip in Thailand, a quick visit to friends in Sweden and Amsterdam before flying over to Canada to start a new season there. Who knows, maybe I'll take some of this positive engergy with me this time?