A recent acquisition is this 1959 book by the late Ollie Polasek, a ski instructor at Mount Buffalo and Mount Buller, Victoria. During a bad snowstorm in the early 1960s, two children of Sir Rupert Clarke , a leading businessman and pastoralist connected with the introduction of Santa Gertrudis cattle from the King Ranch in Texas, went missing and were feared dead.
Polasek went to the mountain and rescued them. As a result , Sir Rupert backed Polasek in the Cresta Valley Lodge at Mount Buffalo . It has been reported that in a deal done over the form guide at the Caulfield races , the Victorian Premier Sir Henry Bolte gave part of the mountain to Sir Rupert and Polasek for the ski lodge . Polasek hosted the nation's first major ski race at Mount Buffalo in 1964 and invited every slalom entrant from the Innsbruck Winter Olympics to Cresta Valley.
Born in Hranice, Czechoslovakia , Polasek graduated from university in Prague with degrees in Commerce, Economics and Pedagogics .While studying he was a ski instructor in Bavaria. Arriving in Australia in 1950, he went to Melbourne University. Published by Lothian,108pp,dj,the book is well illustrated and contains diagrams by Judith Ellerton and cartoons by Margaret Richardson and Wally Tooth. Bushfires destroyed the lodge in December 2006.
