We've been working hard organising our trans-continental move AND planning a 5 month travelling trip. Unfortunately our time in Oz in January does not include the Snowy Mountains or Barrington Tops. They are both large national parks in NSW: Snowy Mountains is approx 6 hours south of Sydney whereas Barrington Tops is approx 6 hours north of Sydney… a bit too far for a day trip! We had a few days of holiday remaining and we definitely deserved a few days off so we went down to the Snowy Mountains for a 4 day weekend.
It wasn’t the best time to go – but it was now or never. The ski season finishes the first weekend in October and the walking season starts the first weekend in November. We were there in between the two. Consequently there was still a lot of snow on the Alpine plateau, much to Phil’s absolute delight.
The main objective of the trip was to climb Mount Kosciuszko – mainland Australia’s highest peak (2,228m). We checked the weather forecast – fine but windy. I was dubious when they advised us to hire snow shoes….was this really a good idea? We started the walk at Thredbo which is an ‘alpine’ village nestled in a steep valley (1,365m). It’s a ski resort in the winter which meant we were able to do 600m of the mountain climb on the ski lift! Is this cheating?
Once on the plateau it was a further 6.5km to the top of Mt Kosciuszko. For the first 2km the path was reasonably snow free, just an occasional drift to negotiate. After that we just followed footprints. There were no poles to mark the way, and no signs of a path, just snow. The wind was strong and bitter and had me walking double on the really exposed parts. I was so glad of my Goretex waterproof/windproof trousers. Kosciuszko is not really a mountain, more the highest mound on the plateau. The official path actually winds round gradually to the top, but there was no evidence of a path under the snow so we just went straight up the side - kicking the spikes on the front of the snow shoes into the snow/ice to get a grip.
I stuck my head over the top and then huddled behind the trig point out of the wind – I’m sure the view was great. Going down was much more fun. Given how excited Phil was at the snow and alpine scenery combo I think he really might be a cross country skier.
Thredbo also has a bobsled run. This was closed for maintenance. I was gutted!
We did a few more walks over the next few days. The walk I’d really set my heart on was still snow bound - the people in the car park had cross country skis with them. Every scenic mountain river had signs promising platypus but failed to deliver. We did see lots of kangaroos; a goanna (very big lizard) and an emu with stripy baby emus.
Its just 1 more week of hard work: work hard and play hard. We’ve got visitors with us. We’ve got lots of move related tasks to do and we’ve got enough work work to keep us out of trouble. I think we may need a few months off to recover!
