Our second Aussie winter is about to start, the nights are closing in and it dipped to a chilly 19 degrees today in Sydney(!). So today saw the very first winter snowfall in the Aussie alps - the Snowy Mountains, about 6 hrs drive from Sydney.......so in tribute I thought I'd finally finish our Xmas adventures update when we visited this area in the height of summer when it's a walking/mountain biking centre rather than ski-central.
Heading inland from Eden, we passed across some beautiful scenery on a rather hot drive. With Reggie's warning light popping on as we left Eden, we decided the best approach would be to not use any unnecessary power i.e. air conditioning and kept the engine running even when we stopped. A wise decision as it turned out.
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| The buzzing town of Bombola, pretty much exactly halfway between Sydders and Melbourne |
Arriving at our hotel in the main Alpine village of Thredbo, Reggie had finally had enough and conked out with the windows stuck open. But at least he'd got us there. A visit from roadside assistance confirmed we would need a jump start every time we set off until we could get someone to work out what had broken.
Since we didn't need to move on for a couple of days, we put it to the back of our minds and set about exploring....and mountaineering! Thredbo sits at the bottom of Mount Kosciuszko...the highest mountain in Australia, all 2228 feet of it.
We jumped on the ski lift to take us up to about 1900ft where lots of the ski runs start in the winter, but in the summer are mountain bike heaven. There was many a padded biker with their bike wedged awkwardly into the ski lift around us. The 1900ft point also kicks off the walk to the summit and we set off on the ascent!
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| Looking down to Thredbo from the ski lift |
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| Snow....but 20 degrees.Confusing. |
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| A bit of Aussie Alpine scenery |
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| The top of Australia |
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| Summiting! |
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| but this is how it looks today...brrrrr! |
So it's time to start 'rugging up' as they call it and Ben can once more start ranting at people coming into work complaining about the 'ícy, freeeeeeeeezing weather'. It's still 17 degrees people!!!!!! To be fair it'll soon be 12 degrees inside our non-centrally heated house. A strange quirk of Aussie house-building. I guess it's just not worth it for only 3 months of cold. Brrrrrrrrrr..........
