OWI alpine skiers Jono Brauer and Craig Branch are back in Australia after several weeks of training in South America. And we mean very South America. The New South Wales duo have been training with the British Alpine team, based in the Argentina city of Ushuaia, the southernmost city in the world.

Ushuaia is on the island of Tierra del Fuego, at the very bottom of the American continent, not all that far from Antarctica, but a long way from most other places.

Jono and Craig report on the experience, their current program, and their plans heading into the World Cup season.

Jono Brauer: We arrived in Ushuaia after a hectic 40 hours of travelling. The hill where we were training at was Cerro Castor. The first week the snow was a little soft, although it was a great introduction for our return to training. We met up with the British team coaches and their number one athlete, Chemmy Alcott.

The first week on snow was a great introduction back to training again, especially for me after six months off. My knee was in good shape, and to be back in the gates was fantastic.

At the end of the first week we had some rain which softened things up until night came, then the skies cleared and the snow froze, setting up the training hill like a World Cup. Rock solid ice!

For the next 10 days or so we had incredible conditions and great training. My knee was needing some assistance as the ice was giving me a little bother.

The last week or so brought many international teams such as the Swiss, Italians and Canadians. It also bought over half a metre of fresh snow, which was not so good for training but great for Craig’s and my powder skiing.

We finished up with some days of super G and GS alongside some of the best in the world, which was great. All in all it was a good camp, with some great conditions. Although I had to manage my knee and ski one day on, one day off, I was able to get some great training done.

Craig and I are now back in Oz enjoying some time off and getting some skiing done, working on technique and free skiing drills.

Our next move will be to race the Continental Cup super G and super combi races in Mt Hutt on September 9-10, before flying out to Chile for our second training camp where we will focus on downhill and super G.

Craig Branch: We had a lot of skiing over the three weeks in Argentina, training in all sorts of conditions. The first half of the trip was amazing training in rock hard snow conditions on a very challenging hill.

I'm really happy with the way my skiing is going and I feel I'm streets ahead of where I was this time last year. So I’m looking forward to building on the confidence I gained from last season's results and a full year of training leading into this year’s race season.

We were also fortunate enough to enjoy a few great days of powder after some big snowfalls made the training in deep snow a waste of time.

We ended the trip on the last few days training with and alongside the Canadian, Swiss and Italian teams on a fully watered icy slope, a great way to end a good training camp with super high intensity training.

I'm currently back in Australia for about a month of physical training and a little skiing before we head back to South America. We'll be there for another 3 weeks, training the speed events downhill and super G in a couple of different resorts in Chile.

This will be our last training camp before I take off again in early November for the whole season, with the World Cup circuit kicking off for me in late November in Lake Louise.