Tuesday, March 13, 2018

Mount Kosciuszko and Thredbo

This road trip was EPIC! Now I can say that I've walked on the rooftop of this grand Country. I was scared on both my drive and the climb.. but I did it anyway. And man, that was it so worth it!

I was up at 5am plotting my next roadtrip and could not decide one location for the life of me. At about 9am, it was time to piss or get off the pot.. lol. So I picked Thredbo, booked acommodation for couple nights and was outy.

The drive on the Hume to Wodonga was uneventful. The Bandiana drive next to the Murray river all the way to Tallangata has got to be my most beautiful drive evva! I got to Scammell's lookout by 3:15pm. A biker I met at the lookout told me there was an accident further (but forgot to mention that the road was blocked off) I got to Geehi and was told to turn back by the police. There was a fatal accident there earlier in the arvo where a motobiker rode into a tree. RIP brother.


I drove back to Khancoban and was clueless on the way to my accommodation in Thredbo.. A handsome chemist there gave me the map and told me to go up via Cabramurra, Adminaby and Jindabyne. There is no other way.. It was 5:30pm and I had to make a decision. I didn't want to be driving the super tight winding roads in the night. So.. what would have been another 40 mins to Thredbo turned into 280kms and  4hours. But gosh, was that drive epic! The road was mostly deserted and scary as.. there were rock slides in many places. Somehow I went past the big trout in Adminaby at sunset!


The Tumut Pond Reservoir is beautiful and I'd have never seen it if it wasn't for the road-block at Geehi. Even the trees on the peak at Cabramurra were nothing like I'd ever seen before!


I got to Thredbo at 9:30pm. After all that super intense driving through the twisties I crashed at 11ish and was woken up way too many times in the night by neighboring travellers.


I made a couple of friends - Chris and Lawz, the next morning as I was making my protein smoothie and everyone up at that hour was getting ready to go climb to the peak of Mt. Kozi. I was like heck yeah! The boys were going to climb all the way to the top from Thredbo village. I decided I was going to take the chair lift to Eagle's Nest instead. The 20 min cable chair was fun! After that the peak is 6.5km away. It took me about an hour and half. I didn't have any snacks on me.. just 500ml water.

 

The walk to the top is absolutely stunning. Especially when you get to the Lake Cootapatamba lookput. Its the highest lake in Australia and it's gorgeous! It gets windier from there. The trail is flat as and mostly metal grill and a bit of cobblestone near the top. The walk to the top has been the most serene and peaceful experience for me especially after the adrenaline pumping drive. I didn't have Vi on me so for the first time I was walking with no music.. All I could hear was the swoosh of the wind, my footsteps on the metal path and occasional hello and chats of the people I overtook. The walk up to the peak took me an hour and a half and about the same time on the way down. Would have been faster if I didn't stop every 15mins for selfies.. lol

  

I got back down and was hungry enough to eat a well... the equivalent of a horse for a vegetarian. The Burger bar in Thredbo is lovely. I sat there and ate a veggie burger by the Thredbo river. It was so mesmerising to watch and hear the water and occasional ducks that I decided to get a dessert.. and nearly died of a heart attack after all that.. Got back to where I was staying and vegged out on the lounge chatting with Chris. The beauty of Thredbo is the water all around there and makes this lovely gurgling sound and it melts all the city woes away. The stars were also sooo bright in the night and even with all the lights around I could see the Milky Way.

  

By 3:45pm I told Chris and Lawz that there was nothing left in Thredbo for me to do and I was thinking of getting back.. And Lawz goes, have been on the bobsled? We googled it and it was about to shut at 4PM.. so we hurried to there and had an AWESOME time down the 700m bob sled.. next time, I'm going to buy the 6 rides package lol.

I left Thredbo at 4:30 and wasn't sure where to go so I figured I might cut through to Bairnsdale and spend Monday there (public holiday in VIC) I drove down a path my GPS told me and obviously it was a gravel road.. I've gone to about 20km on it but that's about all I will risk in my car.. after a few kms of skidding around I decided there was no way I could go on like this for the next 260kms. I turned back and saw a gorgeous echidna scurrying across the road. I drove back via Jindabyne and Thredbo. The winding roads start after Thredbo and go on for 60km till Khancoban and I made it to there just by dusk... and man was that a fun drive!!

  

I got back to mine and was in bed at 1:15am and had an entire Monday ahead of me to laze about and finish chores.

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