Skiing at The Snozone, Milton Keynes

I suddenly remembered yesterday that I never blogged properly about my first skiing lesson at The Snozone in Milton Keynes, so I thought I'd do a belated post, just incase any of you are thinking about taking up skiing and want to know what to expect.

For a while now Rob has been hinting about skiing holidays but I've always been rather apprehensive, replying with excuses like "but I've never been skiing before and you'll race off without me!" {which still applies, I may add!}! Anyway, after some deliberation I decided that it was time to finally bite the bullet and have a few lessons to prepare myself for a possible future ski trip, especially seeing as 'learning to ski' happens to be number 14 on my 30 before 30 list! 

So with a lesson booked for me and a freestyle session for Rob, we headed to the Snozone in Milton Keynes. There are several man-made ski slopes in South East England, in hindsight maybe The Snow Centre in Hemel Hempstead would have been a little easier to get to {plus my parents live just 5 minutes down the road from there} but we chose Milton Keynes which boasts real snow as opposed to just a dry slope, giving you a more realistic experience. The Snozone is situated in Xscape MK, a vast building dedicated to indoor entertainment, with a cinema, various restaurants and shops, an indoor skydiving experience and the ski slope. If you're looking for an activity packed afternoon, Xscape is your place. The same cannot be said for the rest of Milton Keynes however, which is pretty uninspiring...

The drive up to MK isn't too bad from London, we got there in just over an hour and arrived early, giving ourselves ample time to get changed into our ski gear. If you haven't got any gear, never fear, you're able to hire everything you could possibly need at the Snozone for a small fee. I figured that as we plan on going away in the not too distant future anyway, it would be sensible to buy a few things of my own. I managed to purchase some good bargains from TK Maxx {who have an excellent range of discounted sportswear} and Decathlon which is conveniently just down the road from us. I got my jacket, trousers, gloves and goggles all for £80, pretty good value! Do you like my florescent green jacket?! Love it!

After picking up my boots, helmet and skis from the ski store {these are all included in the price of a lesson} I went over and joined my group. I can't for the life of me remember my instructor's name but he was a lovely man with over 25 years of skiing experience, which eased my nerves a little. There were 6 of us in our little group, "ski lesson number 1", and I was relieved to find out that none of the others had any previous experience skiing. I went snowboarding for a few days on the slopes of Ruapehu whilst in New Zealand a few years ago but I had never attempted skiing, so it was alien to me. It was comforting that I wasn't alone in feeling nervous! Our 90 minute lesson was spent learning how to walk in our skis and generally getting used to the feel of having a pair of skis attached to our feet. It feels rather bizarre at first and there were a few wobbly moments where I didn't feel at all in control of my feet!  Thankfully I managed to stay off the ground and didn't fall on my bum. Gradually we were able to progress from side stepping in our skis like absolute idiots, to climbing sideways up a small slope and skiing down. And finally we learnt the art of 'snow ploughing' {a braking technique in which you bring the front of your skis together to slow down}. 

And it's true what they say - practice makes perfect. After several times skiing down the babiest of slopes my confidence was beginning to grow and it all started to feel rather exciting! All the while I kept peeking over to the large slope on the other side where I spied Rob racing down on his skis... he was SO FAST!! Will I ever be able to ski as fast as him?! Hmmm..! It's baby steps. I've still got a long way to go until I'll feel confident enough to ski down some huge mountain in a European ski resort. But I'm happy to have finally started my skiing journey and am already looking forward to lesson number 2. Bring it on!

{Lesson Number 1 costs £32.49 for adults and lasts 90 minutes. Each lesson decreases slightly in price. You can find more information about the Snozone here}. 


Lydia xxx