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We woke on the final day of the Hotham 09 Ski Adventure at 6am, to be ready for a 7am departure from Bright. The morning was full of cold-weather showers as always, but everyone was pretty happy considering the time and the temperature outside; -2C according to the car thermometer. Once the layer of ice had been been removed from the three cars in the convoy, and all of the removed luggage repacked, we hit the road – with 900kms to drive before we were home.

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We stopped for breakfast at the usual pit-stop – the McDonald’s at Glenrowan (well, one of the McDonald’s) – and were met with a relatively normal morning crowd. Unfortunately Ed wasn’t feeling well now, although Pip was feeling considerably better, and so he missed out on the most unhealthy breakfast of the week so far. Without too much messing around, the 11 of us were finished our meals and loaded back into the cars to continue the journey.

Luckily, the reverse leg of this journey always seems shorter than the way over – possibly because of a slightly rearranged stop schedule in this direction, and the lack of a few restless break stops. While our next scheduled stop was Lake Boga, we had to stop at Echuca just briefly to change drivers in nearly all vehicles. We continued from this point on to our lunch break – although normally would be the McDonald’s at Shepparton, this year a home-cooked meal at Nick’s Dad’s place was just too appealing.

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The party of 11 was treated with a serve of pumpkin soup and toasted rolls – more than enough for any hungry person – but for us, the food didn’t stop there. Once everyone was done with soup (and thought they were done with lunch), Val uncovered a large lasagne and a few salads to complement the now main course. Surely this was enough for us – and very much appreciated compared to a McDonald’s alternative – but the offers continued with chocolate cake up next for those who were keen. John was the only one to jump at the idea of cake, and as a result the cake never did appear. We questioned whether the “cake was a lie”, but laughed that off and laughed that John’s cake remained a mystery.

After lunch was done, we hit the road again heading closer and closer to the South Australian border. Our next stop was Pinnaroo – for both petrol and a toilet break. We didn’t stop here too much longer than required, as at this point home was less than 250km away. Another driver change and we were on the final stretch home. Everyone was particularly tired after a long day driving, and as the sun began to set over the Mt Lofty Ranges Adelaide broke through into view. By the time we had reached the bottom of the freeway it was well and truly dark (at 6pm), and after a quick stop to drop off Nick, we made the final few turns to reach our original starting point – 2000km later.

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All in all, the Hotham 09 trip was a successful one with many good days of skiing had on great snow conditions. It was unfortunate about the illnesses that some members developed, but other than these we had no other problems along the way. Unless it snows considerably in the next few days and weeks, it’s possible that we could have had arguably the best week (condition-wise) of the entire season. It wasn’t all sunny days, but it was new snow and new terrain almost every day. With any luck we’ll hit the slopes again at the end of the year, but when, where and who is yet to be confirmed!