Mount Kosciuszko

We turned inland and made our way up the Great Dividing Range onto the plateaus above. It was a lot of driving in the lower gears, burning fuel. Over the last few months we have discovered that the size of the name of the town in print does not reflect the size of the town. Case in point. Arriving in Nimmitabel at the bottom of our fuel tank, we discovered that there were no petrol stations. So we detoured to Cooma, 45 km away, fingers crossed. All fuelled up, we found a lovely campsite in Kosciuszko National Park(sorry, no hot showers this time.) We spent the evening watching the sunset and kangaroos bounding through the tall grass in the fields behind us.

The next morning we arose early (earlier than usual), had a hearty bowl of porridge and headed for Thredbo, Australia's ski hill. Our goal was to climb Mount Kosciuszko. We did cheat a little bit by getting a lift ticket on the Snowgums chairlift which elevated us up to 1800 metres. From there it was all us. Two hours and seven kilometres later we were standing on the summit of mainland Australia. We started the hike in t-shirts, but by the top wool and jackets were much needed as winds were gusting at 50-60 km per hour. We were proud of our accomplishment. Hopefully, it is only the first of many summits to come (Mount Kilimanjaro?)

By the end of the day, we had made our way to Khancoban, the base of the Snowy Mountains and the head of the Murray River. After a big, steak dinner, we watched "The Man From Snowy River," the first television we have watched in three months. We enjoyed seeing the movie with its familiar surroundings, however, the 13 inch screen was smaller than we are used to. We wonder how our big screen tv is doing?

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