Skiing with Ostriches

Look! It's a bird! It's a plane! NO! It's SUPERM..... no, wait, sorry. I was right the first time. It is a bird. An ostrich, actually. On skis. Slip-sliding down a ski slope in Japan. Tricky little bird just did a 360 in the air... smartarse!

Now consider the ostrich - a flightless bird, native to the endless, sunburnt savannas of Africa. A place that is not entirely unlike the Australian outback, if we ignore the occasional elephant, giraffe and lion. But forgetting fauna disparities for a moment, no matter how you look at it, an Ostrich is about as likely a natural skier as.... shucks, I dunno... an Australian?

True - Australia managed to get both a gold and a bronze medal in the Winter Olympics this year (kicking Japans arse... again!). In fact, in the 2002 Olympics, we scored 2 gold medals - the most memorable being the one for the speed skating event when everyone else in the group fell over, like a bunch of bright-coloured dominoes in spandex, leaving the Australian (who was coming dead last) to cruise past their crumpled bodies, first over the finish line, and in the process became the epitome of a "bloody legend" to all us Australians. And yes, it is also true that we have a few ski resorts in the south-eastern part of Australia, but I don't think we can really call ourselves "snow people" - you only need to see how stupid I get when it starts to snow as evidence of this.

As so it is with this mind that I leave for a 2 day ski trip today. I phoned my host mum last night to tell her about my travel plans, at which point she warned me to be careful, and look out for avalanches... huh!?! How are you supposed to be 'careful' not to get caught in an avalanche? It's not like I can get up in the morning, look out onto the slope and say "Yup. That looks like avalanche weather to me. Reckon I might wear a extra jacket today, just to be careful...".

Anyway... if you're looking for me, I'll be skiing with the ostriches and racing avalanches down the slopes.