Blogs from Kosciuszko National Park, New South Wales, Australia, Oceania

When the first person tackled all of the Seven Summits back in the 80s it was mostly accepted that Mount Kosciuszko was the highest mountain in Australia. However, since the Indonesian province of Papua on the island of New Guinea is considered to be located on the Australian continental shelf many climbers insist that Puncak Java at an elevation of 4,884 meters (16,024 feet) is the highest summit of Australia. In addition to being a technical climb, Puncak Java is much higher than Kosciuszko, which I just summited this morning, and also infinitely more expensive to summit due to its remoteness. So this could have been my fifth of the seven summits but present convention dictates otherwise. Even though this was just a walk up, I was very fortunate on 2 counts. First, the weather was ... read more

Time to leave Canberra today but before moving on we returned to the Australian War Memorial to see the exhibits relating to the post-1945 conflicts. Again this was fascinating and it was interesting to see how our nation punched above its weight in combat abroad and also the people's distaste for war grow as more recent conflicts became a political timebomb. Rachel and I also took the time to look up the war records of our grandfathers and one was particularly colourful. We then headed south to Cooma and into the Snowy Mountains region of NSW. The staff at the Visitor's Centre in the town centre were particularly helpful and gave us plenty of reassurance that we could make the trek up to the ski fields with no hassles and that there was still snow about. ... read more

17 - 19 February 2011 The last two nights with the parents were spent at Talbingo and Jounama Creek. We set up camp next to the creek which was the highest it had been in a decade. It was a proper camp experience with a hotpot on the fire for dinner and Alex made his damper. The drive up to Talbingo was absolutely stunning. We drove the Alpine Way and went through the highest town in Australia, Cabramurra. We've seen so many towns which obviously boomed in their heyday but are since pretty much deserted. Driving through Selwyn from the other side was interesting and it's strange to see these places dry instead of covered in snow. We stopped at Khancoban for lunch and at a couple of lookouts. We went to the Yarrangobilly Caves one ... read more

By a stroke of great luck and generosity on the part of Hannah, I had the offer of a lift to the Snowy Mountains, a place I'd planned to go with the car but thought I'd have to ditch now that I was chained to public transport. We booked into a hostel at Thredbo and covered the 550km journey in a day. Switzerland, the Snowies are not. For most of the approach from the east, they weren't really visible, but then we arrived at Jindabyne, a pleasant town set on a large lake, and we were now surrounded by wooded hills - a gentle rather than rugged type of scenery. Thredbo is principally a ski resort, but we were there out of season so there was no snow to be seen (Snowies without the snow... hmm). ... read more

Kako sem osvojila najvisji vrh Avstralije. Ponudila se mi je priloznost za obisk Kosciuszko national parka in podvig na istoimensko goro, ki je hkrati najvisja gora v Avstraliji. Prijazna Stajerka Zinka, ki ze vrsto let zivi v Canberri je bila moja sopotnica in vodnica. Po 18 km hoje sva osvojili Kosciuszko, ali 2.228 m visoko vzpetino, ki je po visini sleme Avstralije. Po dveurni voznji proti jugo-zahodu sva se ustavili v majhnem podezeljskem mestecu Cooma, ki je bilo bojda v 60. letih prejsnjega stoletja zelo zivahno, ker so v blizini gradili jez za hidroelektrarno. Umetno jezero Jindabyne je napolnjeno in istoimensko naselje ob njem raste, Cooma pa umira. Vozili sva se ob jezeru in pocasi se je cesta zacela vzpenjati in ob cesti se je pojavila tabla z zemljevidom Kosciuszko National park, placali sva vstopnino in ... read more