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Published: July 26th 2011
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The Snowy Mountains are always a place of interest. There are many amazing places up there and for people like me who are from Western Australia, they are a must-go place. Of course, when I went there in May it was pretty darn cold and the chance of finding snow is slim but when you're sitting in Albury McDonald's lamenting over a cup of coffee trying to figure out where to go, the Snowy Mountains always hits the right spot. It's a wonderful drive there if you take the Riverina Highway west out of town and cross the Hume dam on the nifty little bridge. Little may be the wrong word to use - it's a very long bridge. You can follow the Murray River and there are many beautiful spots to stop for a bite to eat – or another coffee – but unfortunately most of them don't allow camping. There is at least one that does. It's called Clarke Lagoon Reserve and its an absolutely wonderful place to camp. There are myriads of birds and ducks and they not only put you to sleep – they also greet you in the morning!
East out of Corryong is the
road which takes you in to the Snowies and there are three options just across the NSW border. You can take a road north to Tumbarumba or drive a little bit past that intersection and turn right at a t-junction to go to Khancoban or drive straight on to Cabramurra. If you do choose to drive on to Cabramurra you will shortly enter the Kosiosko National Park and there is a track to your left. It would appear that its existence is mainly due to some powerlines but there are some picnic areas along it too.
The road winds its way up the mountains and you soon notice why this semi-formed track is here. The powerlines take a very treacherous path and a drive on any section of the powerline track will most likely have most travelers back on the formed dirt road. When the track meets with the powerlines there is a track to your left called Greg Greg Trail. This little track is great fun although not too challenging and the reason for going on this track is, despite it being a lot of fun, it goes past Roaring May Mountain and I was hoping for a
good view. Not too far from the start of the track was a trickle of water going straight across the track and this was the perfect example of why you should always exercise caution. The water had created a ditch wide enough to swallow a good section of each tyre which meant that you could hear a nice “thud” from the inside of the car. You can bet I'll slow down for that one on the way back! There is one point where the track contains three very steep declines which prompted me to ask myself if I was going to get back up them. I did - there wasn't a lot of traction but the tyres did a brilliant job.
Unfortunately my snow spirits were low. By the looks of things at this altitude – there wasn't much chance of finding any and a quick look at the weatherzone website on the way out informed me that there was some rain on the way! It was scheduled for the following evening and after a few more cups of coffee I decided that the smartest thing to do was to get out of there!!!
Still en route to
Sydney the next day, I passed through Tumbarumba the next day. I spent the best part of the day there - I can't remember what I did. Tumbarumba is a wonderful little town that can cater for everybody in every way. Everything you want is there. It wasn't raining but I was watching the radar on the Weatherzone website like a hawk and I knew that rain was definitely going to fall. As soon as the clock hit 3pm, it started but was only light. Perfect! I'll just hop in the car and make my way north to Tumut. Perfect. Fortunately the road to Tumut was sealed and the rain didn't get much heavier. So, no four wheel driving today which was a bit disappointing but I was taking the Wee Jasper Road the next day as a bit of a short cut and that was much more than I had bargained for and to make things worse, the rain got heavier!! My next post will have all the details so subscribe to be alerted when it's up.
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