INGRID GOES SKI-ING

Taranaki Daily News, 10 February 1934, Page 18 (Supplement)

INGRID GOES SKI-ING

A TALE OF NORWAY. (By Elisabeth Kyle.) A frosty Saturday morning in Oslo. A fair-haired girl, with two flaxen plaits coiled round her ears below the jaurlty red cap, swings down the Stortingsgafen, a pair of skis over one shoulder. No college classes to-day! Only the brilliant white and blue of snow stretching above the heights of the capital towards the sky the jingling skates of other students all bound for a day’s outing; and at the end of the Stortingsgaten, right behind the State Theatre, the waiting funicular train which starts below street level, and drags its ski-laden cargo up to Paradise—or rather to Hohnenkollen, most famous of all ski-runs.

The wide-windowed observation . car glides out or the platform, emerges into daylight, climbs steadily past one charming suburb to the next, then plunges suddenly into pine woods, silence and snow. When Ingrid gets out, she. is in the heart of the hills, although, looking back, she can still catch a glimpse of'the winding, snake-like Oslo Fijord far below. The slopes are full to-day of hurrying folk, for this morning there will be an exhibition by champion ski-run-ners, who already leap and soar like birds through the air, from the great iron “jump” which stands out for miles against the sky. Everyone must have a ticket to come near enough to watch the fun. Some people are saying that the much-lovea Crown Princess, her eyes as. blue as the turquoises she usually wears, has arrived

Ingrid cannot say if it is true, for she turns away reluctantly from the tempting “gate” to do some practising on hexown. After all, tumbling about on her own is really better fun than watching other people do what she can never perform. Not that she is an inexpert ski-er herself—every Norwegian girl can manipulate skis somehow—but she cannot be expected tv study all day in a class-room and become an exhibition performer too.

At last, in an hour or two, all in a glow, she begins to think about refreshments. There are plenty of charming restaurants hidden amongst the pines. She chooses that one which is decorated Norwegian fashion, with a painted roof and great carved rafters, nailed round with stags’ antlers. Fish with butter sauce, rye bread and cheese, a glass of milk. Already, while she eats, the mists are beginning to roll back on the mountains, and the first faint sign of dusk hangs in the air. She claps her long skis over her shoulder and sets off along the mountain path leading downward past, a quiet little lake, choosing to walk in preference to taking the stuffy funicular, sure to be crowded by returning watchers from the great ski-run.