Sunday 15 April 2012

The Australian Alps with snow.

Jon loves the mountains....


We enjoyed a day trip to Mt. Buffalo before we left the Bright region and enjoyed walking in the forest and the boys even had a dip in the clear icy mountain streams.


Then as soon as we started climbing from Mt.Beauty into the Alps Jo became  animated, excited, pointing out plants to Oscar and Angus and smiling contentedly.



Angus's favourite river stone




We walked into a very old cattleman's hut near Falls Creek named Wallace's Hut and admired the snow gums as the icy wind whistled around our ears.  We spent time trying to imagine the life of the cattlemen in the area and Oscar and Angus just had to climb the beautiful snow gums.  We drove a little bit further and then found an isolated camping area, Raspberry Hills, which looked idyllic after the business of Bright.


The afternoon was spent simply collecting firewood, setting the fire, cooking a roast and the boys made a swing from a length of rock climbing rope that had been left behind by previous campers.  Our damper making has improved and we experimented with baking it in foil and on a stick.  We were the only campers that night and slept soundly.


Further along the road heading toward Thredbo we decided to spend Easter at a bush camping area alongside Swampy Plains River that was called Geehi Flats.  Our campsite was beside the river and there were numerous old cattleman huts to explore.  The huts were made from river stones and were so bright inside and gorgeous compared to the many of the old Tassie huts I've been into.


The weather was kinder to us than previously and so we were able to spend time enjoying the river and surrounds.  Oscar and Angus floated on the body boards down the river for about 1.5kms bumping down the rapids and swimming the pools.  Jon and I tried to float down beside them in wetsuits but after bumping every part of our bodies on rocks we decided walking the last bit was preferable!


Oscar and I rode a 10km circuit along some of the old cattleman tracks and 4WD roads to explore huts further down the river.  We had to cross the river twice and as the level was up for this time of year it proved quite a challenge - nothing like a bit of adventure.  Angus and Jon rode from the opposite direction and met us near a bend of the river that had a piece of rope and stick tied to a tree above a deeper swimming hole.  Jon and Angus were very keen, and as Angus couldn't reach the stick Jon lifted him up while balancing on a log.  I think we would have won Funniest Home Videos if we had filmed the next few moments as they both fell off the log into the river making a huge splash.  We spent a long while trying to perfect the swing and cooling off in the process.








Note:  Oscar is standing on a rock!




We drove to Thredbo and caught the quad chairlift part way up Mt.Kosciousko and then walked the 13km return trip to the summit of the mountain.  This was something we had all really wanted to do and were more than a bit surprised to find a well worn metal pathway with quite a crowd making the pilgrimage to Mt.Kosciousko summit.  With the mountain mist surrounding us and icy winds crawling their way into any gap in your clothing, we achieved our goal and stood on the summit gazing into whiteness!  The views were dim but we have now stood on top of Australia (2228m)!


Another highlight was making lots of campfires using driftwood from the floods and our first attempt at fishing.....we went for a walk along the river and took the rod to try and "Snag" a fish as I put it to some camping neighbours.  Oscar was casting at a broad bend in the river and unfortunately snagged the line.  Jon stripped down to his bathers and waded out to unsnag the line - how is that for dedication!  When he was out there I saw a fish jump so he cast the line in that direction twice and bang.....the fish bit and Jon reeled him in.  We all think Jon should always fish in his swimmers as they must have brought in good luck.  We cooked the trout in the Webber an hour or so later and it was just simply delicious.






Our next camp was about 20km out from Jindabyne toward Charlotte's Pass.  Charlotte's pass records the coldest temperatures in Australia.  It is around the other side of Kosciousko from where we had been.  The camp was gorgeous but it was sleeting as we were setting up and before long snowing!  We were so impressed by Oscar and Angus's efforts as they managed to set and light a fire as it was sleeting.  Firewood was easy to collect as it stood in plaited driftwood walls over 1 metre tall running parallel to the river.  That night wasn't pleasant as it got down to about -5 degrees and we had packs of wild dogs or dingos howling all night and seemingly moving from one side of us to the other.  I've not often been scared by animals but as we didn't really know what they were or how close or dangerous it was unsettling to say the least.






We had planned to stay longer in this area but we were cold!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!  Consequently we rang my brother in Canberra and arranged to go down there and warm up, catch up, and spend time with Nigel, Row and Olivia.


We've had a lovely time.  The boys had  a great day at Questacon, we rode up some fantastic MTB trails on Mt.Stromlo and had lunch in the Observatory cafe, went to a Australian children's book illustrators exhibition featuring Jeannie Baker's work, explored the National Portrait Gallery's photographic competition and rode to the Australian Mint.  All this was great fun but I think the highlight for the boys was going along with Olivia to her Taekwondo class and actually breaking a board with a Taewondo hit.


Thanks to Nigel and Row for having us as guests with such short notice (2 hours)!  Thanks to Row's sister, Fiona for such a great tour of the galleries too. Its been lovely catching up and spending time with you all.


Last piece of new is that the car is possibly closer to blowing up despite the lighter van.  We had it serviced yesterday and they said it needs $4500 worth of work doing to it.  It has several oil leaks and a list half a page long of problems.  Hmmmm......buy a new car (Have had a bit of a look but very time consuming and not nothing we like nearby)........fly somewhere and stay at accommodation.........come home slowly..............put some oil in the back and just keep on going slowly......at this point we've chosen the latter and plan to drive to Bateman's Bay tomorrow and camp at Pretty Beach.  Then we'll see what happens next.

1 comment:

  1. Wow it all looks like an amazing journey so far. From swimming weather to floods and snow and sleet.

    Then all the dramas with the car and trailer.

    The best part sounds like the camping and the fishing.

    It's been great reading about your journey and seeing the photos. I assume you must be taking them all Jenny because I don't see you in many of them - the price you pay for being the photographer.

    Looking forward to hearing more stories, we'll try to ring you some time

    Cheers

    Michael

    ReplyDelete