And a little far for you in NSW, but my old stomping grounds at Mt. Hotham in Vic (I did 9 seasons teaching at Hotham), have awesome skiing when the snow is good (August is normally peak conditions), then they have possibly the best inbounds terrain and a ton of sidecountry. Hotham is unique in that the village is close to the top of the mountain and you ski down to get to most of the runs (apart from Summit/Drift areas). On a powder day, it can be really fun skiing -
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I think Australia might surprise you. When the conditions are good (which is not always admittedly), then there's a lot of good resort skiing and backcountry skiing to be had. NZ is great too, but can be unreliable at times also. To me, it seemed like Aus and NZ never had good conditions at the same time, the storm tracks are different. Either Aus was having a good season or NZ was, I can't remember a time when both were firing. I could be wrong on that, that's just from my memories dating back from 2001 to 2009.....
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I think Australia might surprise you. When the conditions are good (which is not always admittedly), then there's a lot of good resort skiing and backcountry skiing to be had. NZ is great too, but can be unreliable at times also. To me, it seemed like Aus and NZ never had good conditions at the same time, the storm tracks are different. Either Aus was having a good season or NZ was, I can't remember a time when both were firing. I could be wrong on that, that's just from my memories dating back from 2001 to 2009.....