The lovely Bec Rodda picked us up at the airport from our red eye flight and showed us a bit of Kelowna, including her church - amazing, massive, alive- before driving us up to Big White to our condo - thanks so much Bec - it was great having contact with a friend from home as well as a very generous bit of help, saving us a very expensive shuttle trip.

The condo is AMAZING. Thank you, thank you, thank you to Peter and Dianne for your incredible hospitality and generosity in lending us this beautiful place for the week. We are feeling really spoilt. While on the subject of thank you's, we should also thank Chelsea and Jer for their part in all this too!!!

We spent the day mainly settling in, finding the shuttle around the village, food shopping….and a few other things…..(we are now both proud goggle wearers instead of sunnies)…, renting skis, and planning our assault on the mountain the next day. Our dinner was followed by a lovely soak in the hot tub on the deck before crashing for the night.

Day 2 in Paradise.

OK. This is a bit like flying business class - spoils you for cattle class forever!! How will we ever cope with Hotham and Falls again haha!!!

We got up and skied to the village to buy a day pass and then headed out to the slopes, armed with our map, marked with all the groomed slopes and a general plan of which of the 5 main areas we would tackle for the day.

I soon found that a green run here is not like a green run in Oz - where they are mainly cat tracks or short wide slopes.!!! No, these are steep, but nicely wide, and LOOOOOOONG. The blue runs were only slightly narrower and steeper, and the black runs were not in my plan as they weren't groomed and I don't do moguls. In fact, I have been trained by our dear friends , Dave and Doris, to only ski corduroy or good snow!!! The snow was fantastic, sun shining, -4, and we only used chair lifts - doesn't get much better than that!

Bragging rights for today were:

Lifts used- Bullet Express, Blackforest Express, Ridge- rocket express

Runs - Sundance ( 3 times), Sun Run x2, Highway 33 x2, Millie's Mile, Cougar Valley, Whiskey Jack, Kyles, Easy Out, Ridge Connector, Perfection, Serwa's - probably our personal favourite - like a long constant roller coaster. The only mishap was falling off the lift once- embarrassing , but true.

Had a 1 1/2 hr break in the middle back at home, Finished the day off with Bailey's Coffee- thanks Air Canada for introducing us to this milk substitute- and then relaxed for the evening, finishing with the hot tub experience again - had to make the weekly maintenance worth it!!!

Day 3.

A more relaxed day for us today on account of me being completely stuffed from yesterday - it is so exhausting having fun!! We decided to bite the bullet and just buy a pass for 3 days instead of our original plan of buying one day passes and having a rest day if the weather was bad!!! We went straight to Serwas again as it was so much fun through the Village via Hummingbird and took the Snow Ghost express- a 6 seater!! After doing it twice we came back via Easy Out and Highway 33 for morning tea/ early lunch, before heading back out to have fun on the slopes near our house- Sundance, (Sam also did Telus Park) while I stayed with the familiar, and then Sun Run - a lovely run, and Highway 33, which Sam insists on calling Highway 83 for some reason, and then retired to the condo due to poor visibility, and once again, total exhaustion on my part. We were skiing in snow quite a bit that day, with 10 cm of snow falling in 24 hours!!

Day 4.

Woke up to a winter wonderland, and not able to see the lift from the window so were a bit slower getting out there. When we did, it was completely different skiing conditions with groomed base and 8 cm of snow on top, which took a bit of getting used to - we associate snow piles with slush, sticky difficult to ski conditions, but one we got used to it, it was fantastic. I only made 1 run before my right calf was killing me so I sat on a bench at the lift while Sam did another run - at home, that would be a 10 minute wait maximum but these runs are so long, it was a fair bit more!!! We then did a few more runs and I came back while Sam did 1 more run, and came in for lunch. We had a bit of a nana nap after lunch and then the intrepid explorers headed out again to the last remaining unchartered territory - the Gem Lake Express. To get there we had to go down Hummingbird, up Ridge-Rocket, down Serwas (our lovely roller coaster ride, Meadow Lark and Ohgo Slow- The run was about 6 kms!!- not like Aussie runs. After heading up the chair lift we took the Village Way- at this stage we were in a bit of a hurry as the lifts were closing soon and needed to get over and back to our area. We managed to just make it in time to the Powder Chair which took us to Powder Easy Out - where I managed to easily fall out, and slide down a slope - in my defence, it was steep and the visibility was poor. One of my boots undid, unbeknown to me in my spill, so the next few minutes were shocking until I discovered this, and Sam did them up again for me!!!

By this time I had once again lost the plot, so retired as we passed the track to the condo, leaving Sam to have 1 more run.

We headed to the village for shopping and then caught the Lara's Gondola to the lower village area, where we had dinner at the Moose Lounge, with live music - Coldplay, Oasis etc - our era, YES. Managed to time it just right to catch the gondola back, walk through the centre and see the festivities there, and catch the shuttle back before it had a ½ hour break. Life is Good!!

I could get used to this lifestyle!!

Day 5.

Last day of skiing- we got away as early as we could and headed straight for the far side of the mountain via the 6 km run!! Phew- nothing like being exhausted already before you get on the lift!! As if that wasn't enough we decided to go and an equally long run - Kalina's Rainbow straight away. It was an interesting run - I had a minor meltdown on a steep part where I froze and tried to side step down while Sam called up continually from below telling me I could do it and to just turn - so easy when you are not the one in terror!!!, before I finally gave up and just skied it. Unfortunately, this meltdown spot was just below the chairlift - embarrassing !!. While on the subject of embarrassing, I fell off the chairlift twice today as well- tiredness will do that to you!!

Anyway, confessions over now. We had a great day and I achieved heaps - hard runs, including 2 runs down the Telus Park - terrain park - traversed almost the whole mountain in 1 day,- Blue Sapphire run was the pick of the bunch today- repeated a whole lot of runs from previous days, and ended up still being able to walk, with no injuries - doesn't get better than that.!! Sam has been very patient and stuck with me the whole time, only having a few runs a day at his speed - after I bowed out for lunch .

This evening we had dinner at The Globe Tapas Bar before heading back to clean up and pack ready for departure tomorrow.

This has been an AMAZING week. What more can I say?