Australia Day and the start of snowboarding

Today is Australia day and of course we celebrated in true ski season fashion, drinking and sunbaking in the snow!

Walking in my thongs on the snow. I am so Australian.

As there are four of us Aussies working in my hotel, we all headed up to Petit Chalet around 11am, wearing our thongs - because what's more Aussie than that? - and soon started hitting the bevvies.

We listened to cliched Aussie music such as ACDC, Angus & Julia Stone, Hilltop Hoods, Pez etc and our head chef brought out his decks and DJ'd for us. It was lots and lots of fun and it was so good introducing some of my non-Aussie friends to our Australia day traditions.

Hayley, one of the Aussie chalet girls I work with, thought that it would be a brilliant idea to go out in our cossies into the snow for a quick sunbaking sesh. Yes, it was cold, but at least we can now say we've tried it. We had an amazing BBQ with prawns, ribs, wedges and salad and, after all of that, I needed a big sleep, so napped for a couple of hours, utterly exhausted.

Learning to snowboard with Janine and Paul

I am so tired because I have been learning to snowboard. It is so much fun, but absolutely knackering because I constantly fall down. It's nice to be doing something different from skiing though, and it is so thoroughly satisfying once I accomplish something new.

I can now go from heelside to toeside and back, and today I mastered the pull lift on my snowboard. I have to be honest, being on a snowboard feels so much cooler than being on skis, although I absolutely love skiing and wouldn't ever permanently swap over.

Given that we have had such poor snow it's great to be on the nursery slopes because poor snow down at the bottom doesn't really affect you, particularly given there are snow canons, whereas up the top of the mountain at the moment, the slopes are just so icy and full of snow cookies that have to be avoided at all costs.

Still having heaps of fun and I cannot believe that we are almost into February. How time flies when you're having fun!