The ski showdown - Australia v New Zealand

By Mal Chenu

I have two hyphenated words for you: ski-in, ski-out. Aussie resorts have it, New Zealand resorts don't, and no amount of bars per square Kiwi-metre can make up for this. On-mountain accommodation is the only way to do the snow in style. You can sleep in and have a relaxing brekky overlooking the Australian Alps before stepping out at your leisure and skiing down to the lifts.

In the land of the long white queue, you have to set your alarm, miss breakfast and haul your hung-over arse onto an overcrowded shuttle in your snow boots while carrying your skis just to endure a nail-biting, one-hour slip 'n-slide commute up an icy road to the snow. And if you miss the bus, you'll probably get into an argument about who is responsible for pavlova or Russell Crowe while you wait in the cold for the next one. By the time you finally get up there, you'll be so harried you might even forget to turn on your Go-Pro! And then what will you post?

Snow is snow, and whether you prefer graupel, firn, snirt, corn, crud, packing or watermelon, you can get your slice of (snowy) heaven right here in Australia. There is no good reason to add the cost and inconvenience of an extra three-hour traverse over to New Zealand just to play on the same white stuff. Not to mention the language difficulties - WTF is a chairluft anyway?

Then there are the dimensions. Perisher in NSW boasts 1245 skiable hectares of diverse terrain, compared to the combined 1050 hectares of North Island's Whakapapa and Turoa.

Treble Cone at Queenstown, the South Island's largest resort, chimes in at a modest 550 hectares. Australia has more runs than New Zealand, just like when we play cricket. And our resorts have trees, which are not only fun to ski between but also provide windbreaks and points of reference in whiteouts.

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The boutique resort at Thredbo has the longest run in Australia or New Zealand, the five-kilometre Village Trail, as well as challenging steeps and high vertical drops. Falls Creek offers 90-odd different runs and more than 60 kilometres of groomed cross-country trails. Pretty Mount Buller is just three hours from Melbourne and has conveniently arranged its blue runs on the northern slopes and its black runs on the southern slopes. The spectacular ski village at Mount Hotham sits on an alpine ridge at cloud height where you look down on the white slopes.

And for serious powder hounds chasing year-round thrills, Perisher also offers the Epic Australia Pass, meaning you can ski Perisher, Falls Creek and Hotham in our winter, then head off to resorts in Japan, Canada, the US and Switzerland.

Australia wins the "Bledisnow Cup" by dint of proximity alone but as you can see, there is a blizzard of reasons to schuss the local pistes.

By Amy Cooper

Adrenalin is New Zealand's national dish. Kiwis believe what goes up must hurtle, plummet, catapult, twist, bounce or plunge down in ways that make you scream for Mum. This is the birthplace of bungy; home of the world's highest cliff dive and biggest human catapult. No other nation has quite the same fascination with gravitational pull. Welcome to skiing's spiritual home.

Sure, there's convenience in the Aussie Alps - but where's the fun in that? You could ski comfortably from your digs onto a neatly groomed slope ... or kick off the thrills upfront with a hair-raising highway to the danger zone before you even snap on your boots. At some of New Zealand's lofty peaks, the ascent is as extreme as the roller coaster ride back down: navigating a barely-there winding road to what feels like the edge of the world (looking at you, Mount Olympus), tramping up insane terrain, or trusting a rickety rope tow at one of NZ's unique no-frills, all-thrills club ski fields (the 1500-metre rope at Roundhill is Australasia's longest and a major rush in itself).

At the South Island's snow capital Queenstown, the action starts at the airport. Skip Uber and transfer into town on a Kawarau jet boat, spinning up Lake Wakatipu like a crazy toy right to your hotel door. Another half hour and you're at Coronet Peak, ready to carve 40 kilometres of trails and overdosing on endorphins. Mere mountains are not enough for the "skiwis". North Island's Mount Ruapehu is an active volcano where you can shred on Whakapapa and Turoa's exhilarating lava-hewn slopes, bowls and drops, up close to the bubbling crater. Turoa has NZ's highest chairlift, a heady 2322 metres.

Or there's glacier skiing on the Himalaya-scale Mount Cook (traditional name Aoraki or "cloud piercer"), through jaw-dropping scenery in one of the world's most pristine, spectacular alpine landscapes.

NZ gets you much higher, too. Heli skiing, not available in Australia, will lift you to untouched snow and giddy altitudes - a "bucket-piste" experience whether you're an intermediate skier or hardcore freestyle nut.

Can't ski? Don't board? You can still rocket out of your comfort zone at several NZ ski fields on a toboggan or Yooner (a bonkers luge-sled hybrid, just in from Europe), or bliss out on those beautiful views. Queenstown's beloved 450-metre panoramic Skyline Gondola up to Bob's Peak reopens on July 1 after a NZ$200 ($181) million renovation, promising an even more unforgettable ride.

Queenstown also happens to be in Central Otago, prime pinot noir country, and the fun-worshipping ski town boasts about 150 bars and restaurants within its teeny one kilometre.

Nowhere else has even half as many ways to get on the piste as the New Zealand snow, bro.