Kosciuszko & Around

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Kosciuszko National Park Trip 5th - 9th January, 2010

Melbourne to Cathedral Range State Park

This was going to be a great little road trip to see some parts of Australia that neither Rupesh or I had visited before. We drove along the Black Spur to Marysville. The amount of regrowth since the bushfires of Black Saturday almost 12 months earlier was incredible. It is still a very pretty area despite the devastation. But it wasn't the town I recognised visiting a few years earlier when going on a day trip up to Lake Mountain. Lots of temporary housing and beginnings of re-building. A new supermarket just recently opened.

We drove in to the Cathedral Range State Park where bushfire damage signs warned of falling tree limbs. We stayed well clear of the trees and camped the night at Neds Gully camp site with only 1 other tent visible in the distance. A very pretty spot by a running stream that we used to fill up with water. We quickly realised that cooking our dinner was going to be rather difficult as we had forgotten the matches to light the little gas stove. There were no shops near by. Thankfully, as we were getting some things from the car, a car drove past and we asked them to stop. They very kindly gave us a box of matches and we could cook our dinner!

Cathedral Range State Park to Kosciuszko National Park

We still had quite a drive ahead of us so got an early start. We stopped off at a viewpoint overlooking the Snowy River Hydroelectric Scheme along the Alpine Way. For the next 2 nights we had a little cabin at the Kosciuszko Mountain Retreat (glorified name for a camping area in the National Park). It was a lovely spot surrounded by big gums with lots of kangaroos and possums about. One kangaroo even stood at the door of the cabin next to us I think hoping for some dinner.

Kosciuszko National Park

An absolutely beautiful day to walk up to the summit of Mt. Kosciuszko. We started at Charlotte Pass and did a loop walk. Some spectacular scenery past small lakes and crossing moutain streams. Although we didn't see many people on the trail we had taken from the pass, there were a lot of people at the Summit. We had lunch on the summit and then followed a much wider/vehicle track back to Charlotte Pass. After a drink at the local ski resort pub (very quiet over the Summer) we headed back to our cabin. A big huntsman made his home on the sliding door frame of the cabin and Rupesh kept a very close eye on his movements in to the evening. We got the wood BBQ going and had a sensational dinner of grilled halloumi and red pepper.

Kosciuszko Mountain Retreat to Geehi Rest Area

We spent some of the morning doing a couple of short walks around the camping area before driving to Thredbo. In Thredbo we had a picnic lunch by the river and visited the museum which had a lot of skiing memorabilia and newspaper records of the Thredbo Landslide in 1997. There was also a great toboggan ride so we had to have a go!

In the Thredbo Valley we stopped at the Wild Brumby Schnapps Distillary and had a few tastings. Our favourite was definitely the Williams Pear Schnapps. We decided to camp another night in the Kosciuszko National Park and found a fantastic camping area at the Geehi Rest Area right on the Swampy Plains River. It was a hot afternoon and we had our own little rock pool in the river. It was a very relaxed afternoon, drinking pear schnapps on ice sitting in our rock pool in the river. A fantastic end to the trip before we headed back to Melbourne the next morning.

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