The Trip: Skiing Thredbo with the family

Name: Kevin Lester and family, Sydney

The Trip: Skiing in Thredbo

The Itinerary: Our annual week with the family in the Snowy mountains is a great way to connect together as a family and get the kids outdoors and away from electronic media. We stop in Cooma for a late lunch at Lott cafe. The warm welcome at this rustic and refurbished woodshed cafe with an open fire, fresh local produce and good coffee and hot chocolate offers a wonderful respite from the road trip from Sydney.

We pick up a yearly pass upon entering the Kosciusko National Park. There is value from the yearly pass in that we invariably visit Thredbo in summer for walking and mountain bike riding and the pass allows free access to all other national parks in NSW for the next year.

After checking in to our apartment at Thredbo Alpine Apartments, we pick up up our pre-booked boots, skis and snowboards (20 per cent discount for booking seven days in advance) so we can get an early start the next morning. We then head to the hotel for some drinks followed by dinner with friends who are also down for the week.

We get out onto the slope early and ski top to bottom for a few hours. We like catching up at Merrits or Eagles Nest for a late morning coffee and sharing some good skiing stories including the best crashes! After a few more runs, some of us have usually had enough so the boys do group lessons in the afternoon. We might do a late lunch at the hotel or Central, a small but quaint cafe in the village.

After a rest or walk we meet up for pre-dinner drinks around the open fire at the hotel and then dinner with family and friends at the T-Bar, Berntis or House of Ullr, all great places to eat in a warm, friendly and cosy environment. After dinner we might play some cards, either 500 or Hearts appears to be the current favourites, and then it's sleep for everyone.

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