Frolicking on Lake Jindabyne

Hey Hey!

So yeah we did spend this morning wandering around the town and doing some food shopping, then after dinner we went over to Tropic Snow Snowboards to meet up with the guy who was sorting out our watersports, a French guy called Nic (at least I think he was French, from his accent). He drove us down to Lake Jindabyne where we met up with a guy called Marty, and changed into wetsuits and life jackets. It was very cold though, about 8C because of the strong, cold wind. We were shivering in our wetsuits!

We went canoeing first - both of us in the same canoe - and because it was so choppy the canoe veered right no matter how hard left we paddled. So we headed for the island that was straight ahead of us and once we got there decided to circle it. We were having lots of fun pretending we were explorers of a new land and singing sea chanties and such (or at least I was - Claire wasn't much into the whole sailor/explorer game!), when suddenly we crashed into something underwater. Screaming, thinking we'd just disembowelled a water monster, I saw it was actually a submerged tree trunk. There was a few of them too, but in fairness we were quite close to the shore of the island.

We hit a point where we were head on to the wind, not able to move anywhere, when on cue Marty sailed around on his sailing boat to give us a tow back to shore. It was a little catamaran, basically with a big sail and a mesh canopy for a floor. This was the point where I regretted sitting at the front; I got sopping wet from the spray off the catamaran, which made me extremely cold after I got out of the canoe and was exposed to the wind.

We thought that this was a good point at which to get on the catamaran for a bit of a sail, you know, being freezing cold and wet and such. No need to go and dry and get warm, oh no. Anyhoo, we convinced Marty to sail the boat for us since we didn't have the first clue about how to do it and had absolutely no intention of getting stranded in the middle of the lake when it was this cold. It was pretty good, I just wish I hadn't have been so preoccupied with my arms turning blue!

We spent about two hours outside of the shack, out of the wind, trying to warm up. Marty was great - he gave us warm coats out of his car and tried to fashion a camp for us by driving the car to a 45 degree angle to the shack, then covering the open space by attaching a groundsheet to the car boot and the shack door. Then Nic turned up with tea and coffee which we utilised with the water we'd just boiled on a calor gas stove.

When we were just about warm, an Adventure Tours bus turned up, driven by the guy who took us from Lorne to Melbourne. We had a load of people wanting to sail (crazy idiots) and he wanted to waterski. We went out on the boat to watch him since we had nothing better to do, and it was great! He didn't get up the first couple of times, but after that he made it look too easy! And he was only using one ski, so I imagine it would've been much harder than usual. We caught up with the people who were sailing once he was done, and a boat of three Canadian guys were really struggling to get out of allignment with the wind. They were cold and frightened, the poor guys! We towed them in and got them on the boat, then once we were back ashore one of them fell in. We got a lift back with them and that guy headed straight for the sauna! I wished we had a sauna at our hostel - my pants were soaked through.

After a luscious hot shower and some tea we went to the cinema (which was, frankly, a little less than heaving) to see Miss Congeniality 2. Like all sequels, it didn't match the first, but it was still laugh-out-loud hilarious.

Today we got up around dinnertime, after being exhausted by the day before. We had a stroll into the town (which was a lot busier today) and down to the lake, where there was some sort of festival going on. They had dozens of 1950's Holdens (Australian Vauxhalls) on display, a couple of carnival rides, and a display of sculptures by the lake (which I'd discovered on Thursday and thought was a permanent fixture). We headed back for some dinner, then mooched over to Tropic Snow Snowboarding again to see about doing some waterskiing. We hadn't done it yesterday because the thought of getting back in the water and getting cold again was unthinkable. Today, however, was a gloriously sunny and warm day - perfect for waterskiing!

Nic drove us down and we met up with Marty again, got in our wetsuits then headed out. Claire had a go first, and although she didn't get up the first time she was golden after that - swerving over the wake and everything. When it came to my go, however, I really struggled to get up cos my legs kept doing the splits and then I would fall over and lose my skis almost every time! Unfortunately, by the time I was getting the hang of it, my legs were just knackered and trembling like mad so I couldn't stand up if I tried. So I reluctantly got back on the boat feeling very disappointed and very bitter towards Claire!

Anyway, after all that cafuffle we got out and got dry, then strolled along the lake back to our hostel. The evening was pretty much spent just chilling out and making tea, we were so tired!