Nutcracker Ski Club

I had no idea that there was a festival like this, but the photos are absolutely amazing.

Every year in, Harbin, China, they hold a Snow Sculpture Art Fair. Harbin is located in Northwest China and it’s temperatures are influenced by the winter winds of Serbis. The average temperature in summer is 21.2 degrees and -16.8 degrees in winter. It can get as cold as - 38.1!

The Festival opens every year on January 5th and runs for a month, and includes ice sculptures and various activities.

In 2007 they entered the Guiness World Records by building the largest snow sculpture at 250 metres long and 28 feet high, using over 13,000 cubic metres of snow.

There are some amazing pictures of many of the snow and ice sculptures from last years festival here. I haighly recommend having a look at them as they get lit up at night and the views are spectacular.

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I wasn’t aware of this service but Mt Buller has setup a resort-wide wireless network for its visitors to surf the Web in their idle time dubbed “Whispar”.

This is a first for ski resorts and is unique to Mt Buller. The network consists of a number of 802.11a/b/g Wi-Fi access points that have been strategically placed around the mountain and specifically modified to withstand harsh alpine conditions.

This makes it easier to stay in contact with those off the mountain, especially in terms of emailing which enables you to send photos and video to family and friends directly from the slopes. All you need is a wireless enabled device, or a laptop with a wireless network card. Information is not clear about using Wireless enabled Mobile phones, but I have sent an email to the techies to find out.

There are a number of pricing plans to choose from depending on how often you intend to visit the resort. Pricing ranges from one hour of unlimited use ($9) to one month (1GB) $79.

I’m looking forward to giving it a run when I’m up there, I’ll let you know how it goes. If anyone has already used it, leave a comment for us.

 Cheers

 Em

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Hi Everyone,

 I recieved an email from Jill Schott today with some amazing pics from the Mt Buller fires that a friend had passed onto her. I have added them to the photo album along with the ones I took last weekend.

Click here to view them.

 Thanks Jill, it puts into perspective just how close, and ferocious the fire was and how much work the firefighters had on their hands.

When do we do a ‘whip-round’ for a bottle of Moet and Chandon for Caroline?!

Cheers

Amelia

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Hi Everyone,

I have just arrived back to Melbourne after a weekend getaway to Mt Buller.

I got up there Saturday afternoon after a disasterous rowing regatta at Nagambie where my crew battled with 60km/h wind gusts. A sail would have been more helpful getting us down the course than oars. We came second, but only just!

Mark and I had a relaxing evening by the heater, the temperature was 8 degrees when we got up there. We hooked into a cheese platter with bottle of wine for me and a lemon, lime and bitters for Mark.

Next morning we ventured out for a walk. It was a very chilly and breezy 4 degrees at 10:00am and it looked like this….

We walked to the top of Baldy and looked around, but there wasn’t much of a view to look at. We were hoping to walk down Wombat a bit, but it was a bit too windy!

After a Hot Chocolate at ‘Breathtaker’ and Soup at ‘Cattleman’s’, we had a quick look around Chamois and Stirling Road, then it was time to start packing the car and head home.

We didn’t get to see Caroline, but we did leave her a note.

I took a few photos of the village and surrounds so you can get an idea of how close the fire got and I took some more of a few areas on the Mt Buller Tourist Road and Mirimbah. Sorry I couldn’t take more. I did want to go exploring down a few of the runs but it was really cold.

Click here to have a look at them.

 Mt Buller is hosting a Bushfire Recovery Weekend Feb 10 to thank the crews for all their efforts in protecting the Buller Village and surrounding infrastructure. It’s a great chance to go up and thank the people who worked tirelessly to save our beautiful village from the fires and also to have a look around at just how close this fire came, it really is a shock to see.

Hopefully I will see you there, I’ll be going! Unfortunately I have a regatta on that day and won’t be going, damn!

Cheers

Amelia

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Hi All,

Finally, Mt Buller has re-opened for business, with the chairlifts again operating for scenic rides and downhill mountain biking as of this weekend.

I hope everyone will make an attempt to get up there and support the Community which has lost out on the Christmas and New Year tourist season.  I’m going up this weekend for some more extreme Mountain Bike Riding and hiking. I will take some pics of the area and post them when I get back!

Cheers

Amelia

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