We took the guys to see some snow on Saturday morning. I had been making a nuisance of myself around the house and driving Adrienne crazy with my continual harping on to her about finding out whether we would need chains or if there were other hazards relating to driving of which we should know before heading off. I kept regaling her with stories of how we would be trapped for days after our car slid off the deserted backroads, having to eat our own legs before help was at hand. It turns out that the reason it was so hard for me to get an answer was that the question, I know now, was itself completely ridiculous.
Where we were going was no more than 15 minutes from the outskirts of Canberra. The entire countryside was as dry and arid as if it were the middle of summer. The landscape was barren; devoid of any moisture whatsoever; and any vegetation had been corpsed in the bushfires of January 2003. We found the snowfield without any trouble: a rectangular, sloping patch of ground covered by some kind of artificially made "snow", guarded by a man charging $8 per person to enter, and $6 to hire a little orange plastic "toboggan". Not exactly Aspen. Not exactly the Winter Olympics. But a whole lot of fun for 4, 6 and 40-year-olds regardless. It was a beautifully sunny morning, so nobody cared about sopping wet trousers. Well, Carl did, but once we explained to him that he would stay warmer if he ran around, he was fine. Winter in Canberra.
