While the grumpy old gits amongst us (i.e. me) moan and complain about snow and ice, some of the unhinged within our family take sub-zero temperatures and snowfall as some kind of freakish challenge, and throw themselves off mountains.

To put it another way, the Erbalist, SdZ, Doug, Mikeee, Rich and Alex decided to go snowboarding in Bulgaria a couple of weeks ago. It would seem a good time was had by all.

But don’t take my word for it, the Erbalist has compiled a short review report on the shenanigans on the piste (in more ways than one)

Knickers to that - too much like hard work….I was safely ensconced at Blunt HQ with a cup-a-soup, while the alpine contingent tried to defy gravity, and fair play to ‘em.

The report on the week long excursion, as seen by the Erbalist, is below:

We arrive at Sofia airport at 18.30, we pick up our hire car & meet up with Alex the Bulgarian connection. We pop to Alex’s flat have a nibble & Alex shows us the way to Bansko by map then points us in the direction for our journey.
The five of us are on our way. The five of us being SDZ, Danger Doug, Rich, Mickey Dread Shroomhead, & myself da Erbalist.

The drive to Bansko was very dark, as there are hardly any lights on the motorways in Bulgaria, a bit hairy at times as Bulgarian truck drivers hurtle down the motorways like a pigeon out of Val haller . I hurtled down the motorways at a cautious pace, with DD as the navigator we made it to our destination in no time.

We arrive at Bansko around midnight we put our stuff in our apartment at Mount Blanc, then sprint across the road to the Sir Galahad for beers & food. Mikey Dread manages to sweet talk one of the barmaids & manages to get pizza for us (after midnight).

The following day the five of us make our way to the slopes, we get to the top & the fun commences. Snowboarding is like riding a bike & like all people learning to ride a bike fall off numerous times bruising nearly all parts followed by aches all over. And we call this fun?

We take ages getting down the first run but luck is on our side so far & no broken bones. Right. The next run.

Apart from there not being much snow we manage five days boarding out of a possible seven, which wasn’t bad. One of the days there was a storm the previous night which closed the gondola for a day, so we strolled round the town getting hassled by restaurant touts & taking the sights in.

The food in Bulgaria is great. The best place to sample the delicacies of Bulgaria is at local restaurants called Mehana’s, and we made sure we visited a few of these. Big plates of salad & side dishes for starters & a whopping plate of meat for main course, this washed down with a couple of Zagorca’s roughly comes to about £8 each, a great bargain. Mind you, it is better to have a Bulgarian with you so to know what to order, for us we had Alex, a top mate of SDZ & Rich. With our Bulgarian contact the trip was much easier than it would have been without. Thanks Alex.

We had great fun on the slopes & SDZ spotted a small snowpark on the first day which we tried to reach a couple of times but runs further up the mountain were closed so we couldn’t get the ski lift to board down to it. On the fourth day of boarding SDZ & MD & myself managed to walk up to the snowpark. This was a trek in itself. We finally get there & we set some cameras up to catch our top boarding moves such as MD’s famous triple face plant & my Dragon head grind while SDZ shows us how to get some air. This is great, its just the landing that hurts.

In all, the Bulgaria boarding trip was great apart from the lack of snow. iI hadn’t snowed for some weeks & the runs were getting worse by the day & at times you had to dodge the rocks. Although the conditions weren’t that great
Bansko is still a top holiday destination the people are friendly the food is great & the scenery is breathtaking. No matter where you look in Bulgaria on a clear day all you can see is mountains in every direction. Awesome!

We had a very close shave as we headed back to Sofia airport…. We are making great time then we hit traffic 20km from Sofia which brings us to a standstill. This becomes a bit of a pain, so I nudge my way through like the locals do. We get to Sofia & we have to stop by Alex’s as we have his coat, so we stop off then rush to the airport, then we hit more traffic, then some more. We get down the road a bit further & guess what, yup more traffic. This is at 10am shouldn’t everybody be at work?

We take a wrong turning (oops), we correct ourselves by some seat of your pants driving & head towards the airport at a fine rate of knots. I’ve never driven that fast through a city before, or on a motorway for that instance. We phone Alex up & he sorts the details for the hire car company & they meet us at departures. We all rushed out the car picked up our luggage & i threw the man the keys, we ran to the airport & by the skin of our teeth we make the flight with no problems. Whoohoo. We live to fly another day.