After a cool night in the van at Thredbo, we grabbed a hearty breakfast and headed up the crackenback chairlift, accompanied by the musical sounds of the continuing weekend long blues festival echoing up from the valley below.
From the top of the chairlift there is a specially constructed walking path to protect the fragile mountain vegetation from the thousands of visitors clumping boots. The path streches almost all the way to Mt Kosciuszko, which was our destination, and reminded me greatly of the Yellow brick road from the Wizard of Oz.
Two hours later we were at the highest point in Australia, without a munchkin in sight. (Yes for those of you that know Tamara she did make it all the way to the top) The views were spectacular, but limited somewhat from the smoke of bushfires that were still burning within the national park. The alpine flowers that dot the rocky windswept mountainside are so small, pretty & delicate, it is suprising how they thrive in such an enviroment of extremes. Even more suprising was the fact that Tamara had so much energy left after the gruelling climb, that she was seen running ahead. (It might have been the promise of a cold beer)
Coming back down into Thredbo we were once again serenaded by the sound of the blues floating up towards us. We were able to get a quick listen to a couple more performers before we departed for Khancoban. The road trip was extremely windey, with some steep ups & downs, but very scenic with tall forests. The occasional kangaroo hopped out on the road further down in front of us as the sun grew lower in the sky. We camped the night in Kahncoban, and visited one of the big hydro-electric power stations that form part of the snowy mountains scheme.
Today we have yet to work out were we are heading next, but we'll be sure to let you know where we end up!
Click for map of where this is
