Mantas

Le Spud First let me apologise to you .My attack was way too personel. We were big fans of Steve Irwinin our house ,especially the kids. You hit a nerve. And I over reacted. That said , the centement of the attck remains. Who are you to publically denagrate a man like him.? Your biggest gripe........You found his occerisms and Aussie showmanship a little too unsaviory for your over refinned expatriot taste. What percentage of your personal wealth are you going to give away to causes that ultimately benifit the whole world? What crusade are you going to take on to as a li

Le Spud You are a snob of the worse kind. Nuckle dragging Neaderthal he may have been. But he was 1000000 times the man you'll ever be. Presidents and Queens mourned his passing along with millions of others. (all fools to you I suppose ) Who will mourn your sorry arse.? Perhaps you could join Germaine greer. At least one of you will get to mourn the others passing. He did more for this world than you and your " educated persons club" ' could ever dream of. What makes me extremely happy is that he gets right up the nose of Wannabees like yourself

What I meant to say oceans is that he roped in a much larger viewing audience to a wildlife / nature show than anyone else on the planet His main aim was to make you apprieciate these animals and educate people who think Wildlife is something that goes on at the pub on Friday nights. WOW. ..... While typing this just know I was interupted by some banging noises down the side of my house. I went out to investigate and found a Koala (i kid you not ) trying to climb up my suburban colourbond(sheet steel) fence. Poor bugger couldn't get a grip. Strangely metaphoric don't you think . No

My fondest memories of Steve would be watching my 2 kids aged 2 and 5 dancing around the lounge room watching the Wiggly Safari ,filmed at Australia Zoo. Steve made the Wiggles look docile in comparison. He had a unique gift that had not really been seen before. If you were given the viewing choice of 2 different TV channels (1) David Attenborough sitting in a boat 50 feet from a croc talking about the gestation cycle in great detail. or (2) A complete lunitic diving on top of the bloody thing and wrestling it into the back of a ute ! I know which one I would like to watch.

SC are any of those areas near Hakuba ?

I went to Niseko in Feb this year and then in march i went to BC canada ( yer lucky bastard i know ) While in Whistler BC I did a back country tour directly after a late season dump of 40 cm. Our guide was raving about the quality and lightness of the snow " This is as good as interior powder, not like coast powder at all " to quote him directly. While these long term BC guides were discussing this I was thinking one thing. Yep this powder is good but it aint Hokkaido powder !

Rach, spent 2 weeks in Whistler in March this year and loved it. A big busy place with a huge variaty of terrain. Just depends on what you want really. Also visited Silver star and Lake louise briefly. I'm sure there are people in here that can give you more detail than I can. But I can give you a perspective from a tourist point of view.

Yer born in Australia and raised in a Lebonese comunity, the Lebonese way. Just geography my friend

Le spud . I am bi-sexual. I love having sex with two women. There's room for concern that the question of sexuality is so closley linked to your thoughts when discussing ski trips.

You blokes have no idea. I've done it all before. Right listen up. Comming from london is a snack. first you need quite a bit of speed to launch yourself off the cliffs of Dover. Depending on the line you take you will land in either Normandy or Brittany. From there it's a clear run to the Swisss alps. once again plenty of speed is needed to hit the those mountains. Given enough air time you should land ,say eastern Turkey. From the it's pretty much a clear run accros to the east coast of Russia. Don,t forget to check out the Mongolian terrain park, its wicked. Now the tricky part. You

Yep. A 3 year plan is about the best you can expect from our politicians. The water issue you mentioned earlier is a prime example. I live right on the coast and we get absolutely bucketted with rain. Th e farms 30 km inland can't even get enough rain to add a inch to there domestic water tanks. Surely with some long range thinking we could conquer this problem. We have some of the best engineering people in the world right here. I wonder if the problem existed in Japan ,I think they would find a solution sooner rather than later. Not really sure what you and I can do about it. Well w

For me he lost the plot when he said we should be a "resources superpower" at a time when the world is heading for a major catastophy from over use of fossil fuels. Johnys great vision for us. Let's try to be the greatest contributor the planets demise. Our envioronmental credentials are intact because we don't hunt whales! ( that's another issue )

No-one has anwsered my question about ANZAC day. surely they have diggers over there too.

RD ,Le Spud I'm getting the feeling you blokes aren't a big fan of little Johnny !

A vacine for cervical cancer is now available world wide thanks to Prof Ian Frazer Australian of the year 2006. There seems to be a yawning gap between Aussies that have travelled OS and those that haven't .To be fair i don't think we are much different than most countries in that regard. Most people in the US would know more about brittany spears than Iraq. Our isolation has a lot to do with it. We dont have 20 different cultures on our doorstep like in Europe. Let me tell you Le Spud "BOO terrorism s a real thing. Two years ago good friends of our nearly got killed by a bomb while

I'm planing on going late in the season. Do thay have a dawn service on ANZAC day? Where can you play two up?

Ive heard riding deep powder is just like surfing. Should I save some money on snowboard rental and just take my 6' 4' tri fin ( or should i take the fins out )

All valid points RD . I guess I have a hard time connecting to 2 issues together, sport and pollitics. Our Government certainly is dropping the ball on the big issues that is for sure. Do you it is any different in other countries though. I find it hard to pick a suitable role model around the world. i certainly wouldn't look at the US ! It probably would help if intelligent blokes like you stayed home and didn't piss off overseas.

i wonder how many of that 5% actually stay overseas permanently ?

just wait to you settle down back home Rag Doll. It will all hit home to you. I live overseas for nearly 4 years all up and now I get homesick after 4 days away ! And yes I do play beach cricket with my kids all the time. Cheers mate

I'll tell you in March. I'm going to both this year

Rag Doll . What makes you think we care what other people think of us. i've lived in Canada and the UK and spent time in many other countries so Im not nieve enough to think that we are some super power. most people who do know anything about us think that we are nothing short of a nation of beer swilling cartoon type charactors. Who cares!! Tell the 4 billion people who watched the soccer world cup , some crying in the street. or the billions who watched the olympics, that sports not important. All I'm saying is that we are a long way from "insignicant" on the world scene.

Hang on le Spud. I feel i've got to defend our little ski industry down here. To say that we "shouldn't exist" and we are of "global insignificance" is going a bit too far. Ask Lisa Camplin or Steve Bradberry if they felt insignificant when they were standing on the dias with gold medals around their necks. (No germans on either side of them I noticed). Sure we have an obserdly large winter olympic team. But thats more to do with the Aussie spirit of having a go. That goes for all sport. Even soccer,a very obscure sport down here but we still made it to the top 16. A lot higher than countri

Fair comment le spud and I totally agree. Problem is in places like Australia we simply wouldn't have many places to ski if it wasn't for snow making. Hundreds of thousand of people visit the Aussie snow fields every year. It's very popular, just take a look at the size of the winter olympic team we send overseas every year( not that we win anything). With no snow in our own country to ski. you would have all those powder hungry Aussies at your favorite resort !!

is there anybody doing any snow reports out there that has no links to any resorts/ ski shops/ tourcompanies/ ski lodges/ ski transit operations or any other vested interest in the ski industry ? This would be the only way to eliminate doubt and suspicions in anyones mind. A 100% (not 95%) totally unbiased report. I mean we have huge resources devoted to ocean stats ie swell wind wave hieght ect. and no one has a vested interest in that ! The snow reports over here are laughable. Reading between the lines is the only way to read them !