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For Chris' photos, click here.
For Sam's photos, click here.
Once again, many of us started our journey in The Waterloo Arms. A late breakfast and a couple of pints of GFB later, we headed for Southampton Central Station. Following last year's failure to introduce real ale to France, we'd doubled the amount of "carry out" from one mini-pin to two (18 pints to 36 pints). Ian and Danny could be found on the platform guarding the GFB (one of the poly-pins is just about visible in the bottom-right-hand corner of the photo).
As far as the photos are concerned, the trip from Southampton to London went rather fast (I was obviously too busy drinking GFB to get my camera out!). The journey was un-eventful apart from the fact that I, not knowing that we were on the not-stopping-at-Woking express, phoned up Anthony and arranged for him to get on the same train as us - only to cruise straight through Woking station at high speed. It turned out that Anthony had been stood on the platform of Woking station as no fewer than three trains arrived and departed, waiting for our train! When we arrived at Waterloo, the GFB supplies had been seriously dented - the first poly-pin having only a third remaining.
At Waterloo, we got our tickets from Kate, our friendly Neilson travel rep, and boarded our Eurostar (Photos of our group (front to back): Nick, Jude, Pete, Vic, Chris and Sasha and Ian, Sam, Myk, Danny and Anthony). The GFB continued to take a hammering, the first poly-pin being empty before we had even pulled out of Waterloo. Unfortunately, we again failed in our mission of introducing real ale to France as the second mini-pin ran out about 5 minutes from the Channel Tunnel. It looks like we will need to take THREE next year!? (although the logistics of getting these to Canada could be a little difficult and we wouldn't do very well on the matter of introducing real ale to France either!).
In Paris, we nipped out for a quick bite to eat and then got on our sleeper train for the Alps. This year, I avoided going to the party carriage as I'd indulged in this year's share of alcohol last year! We arrived in La Plagne at approximately 8am to be greeted by our Neilson rep Lucy (who was also our rep last year in Val Thorens) and our chalet hosts Dave & Katherine (who were the chalet hosts in the chalet next door to ours last year in Val Thorens)! The great thing was one of the first thing they said was "You lot are drinkers, aren't you!?". Oh yes!...
Danny and I had our own skis and, thanks to Lucy having pre-prepared lift passes (which only needed the photos and a signature on a credit card slip), were the first out on the slopes at about 9:25am! The weather wasn't great (a bit of a white-out), but I had some virgin skis that needed converting (photo of me having put my new skis on for the first time). By lunchtime, the cloud / mist had cleared and we had blue skies and bright sunlight for the rest of the week.
On the second day, Danny and I had a private skiing lesson with an ESF instructor called Alan. It was really nice to learn what I (mostly) did anyway when skiing - having learnt too early in life to remember what you're supposed to do technique-wise. We then met up with the others for Lunch. In the afternoon, I went skiing with Ian, Chris (on his bum as usual!) and Anthony. You'll be amazed - yes, there is evidence that I was there too! That evening Chris couldn't take the pace and crashed out on the sofa. Is it just me, or did the same happen on last year's holiday?
On day 3 (Monday), I went out skiing with the Ski Club of Great Britain. At lunchtime, we stopped at a restaurant and saw some poor chap, who'd obviously been involved in a skiing accident, sitting quietly reading his book. What better to do than take a photo of him with Colin the Ski Club rep? We've entitled the photo "Here's the one I broke earlier!". ;-) There's also a photo of some of the other ski club members at lunch (Pete, Kay (front) and Julie). When out skiing that afternoon I got another photo of the group (Left to right: Julie, John, Al (Alison) [front bottom], Wendy, Peter, Gavin, Kay, Colin and Pete). Will someone remind me to take photos with the sun behind me please?!
On Tuesday night, we all went out bowling (Ski Club people and some from our group). I took quite a few photos:
After all that bowling, some of us had worked up a thirst (not that we weren't drinking whilst bowling) and the hard-core of the group headed off to the Cheyenne bar for a further drink or few. Thanks to Al, I get to be one of the hard-core, whereas I usually suffer from absent photographer syndrome. As it was their day off the next day, Dave & Katherine (our chalet hosts) joined us for a drink. They'd been to the cinema and arrived a little late so invited Chris and I back to their apartment for a further drink when the bar closed. Chris quickly found the sofa and quickly fell asleep. He also managed to leave his coat (with skiing glasses in the pocket) behind when we woke him up and headed back to the chalet.
On Wednesday, I again went out with the Ski Club. On our last run home we stopped for some photographs of the group:
I also got some nice photos of the village from where we had stopped: [Photo 1] & [Photo 2].
On Thursday, I went out with the ski club in the morning. We went right up to the Bellecote glacier area and, having done a high traverse, enjoyed some skiing in lovely off-piste skiing in deep-ish snow (if it was a little crisp). I skied ahead a little and got photos of a few of the group as they came past: Colin (Ski Club Rep), Al, Vic (note Vic's 'favourite' VW Beetle-sized moguls in the background) & Pete.
In the afternoon, Danny, Chris and I met up with Dave & Katherine. Let's just say that I was skiing to the limit of my ability to keep up with them - blimey, they were fast on their snowboards! Having returned to the chalet later on, I caught Ian returning from a long afternoon's skiing with a BSG (Big Silly Grin!).
On Friday, our last but one day, the Ski Club group hired a mountain guide in order to go "over the top". Unfortunately, I only made it about two thirds of the way up before I started to lag behind. I (stupidly - must have been the altitude) decided to drop out in order not to hold up the rest of the group. It was lovely to just stand there and admire the view for ten minutes or so. Before skiing down, I took a photo looking up the hill. The person in red in the middle of the photo was not one of our group, but Colin & Wendy are the pair on the right-hand side; Pete is the one with bright yellow trousers just below the rest of the main group climbing up the steeper bit to the peak. Vic also had decided earlier not to continue to the top and we met up for a "didn't want to do it anyway!" drink at the Roche de Mio restaurant. We met up with the others for lunch.
In the afternoon, Ian and I went skiing. I took him down a red run called Vega, but he insisted upon testing the snow quality a couple of times on the way down. The photo was taken soon before someone else fell over and slid into me - thankfully my camera survived getting covered with snow! [Before going home the next day, we were sat outside the bar of our chalet block and Ian pointed out this run from a distance saying "Did I ski that?!?!". Ian - Yes you did... nice one mate... pretty darned good for after less than a week of skiing!].
We were all a little tired that night.... The "Rusby Position" was adopted by Nick & Anthony; and Danny, Chris, Pete and I played some cards before going out on the town (village) for a few drinks.
After our last day's skiing, it was all over. Our skis, boots & other kit was packed up and it was time to go home. :_( Katherine & Dave waved goodbye as our bus left the resort. At Aime station, we had a little picnic washed down with some Jenlain and Pelforth. Finally, we boarded the train (after the usual baggage-loading through the carriage windows). Once she'd ensured that everybody else had safely got on the train at the next station, Kate (and her lovely smile too!) joined us for a beaker of wine. Thanks to Kate, I even managed to feature in the traditional everyone a single couchette carriage photo for the very first time! Yes, there are indeed twelve of us in a carriage designed for six (although, thank goodness, only for the photo!). Soon afterwards, Sasha could be found proudly showing off her ski-school achievement badge.
The couchette train dropped us off at Gare du Nord early the next morning, where we caught a Eurostar back to London. At Waterloo, we said our goodbyes, enjoyed the last of the bottles of Pelforth and departed in our many directions.
Epilogue: Already, we're planning next year's holiday in Lake Louise, Canada, to coincide with Danny & Sam's birthdays.
All photos are 640x480 JPEG images (under 100K),
unless otherwise indicated.
For the original photos, which are
suitable for printing, can be found
here
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