4WD Adventures

March 1 & 2

We visited the Cooma Snowy Hydro info centre this morning and were blown away by the size of the scheme. Took over 100, 000 workers and 25 years to build, Has 7 power stations which provide power for half of Australia … or something like that. 121 people were killed during its construction but it seems to have been the start of multi-cultural Oz…with 60 000+ immigrants brought in to work on the project. Quite astounding. Headed through Mt Kosciuszko NP and enjoyed lunch in a very dry, snow-free Thredbo. Can only imagine how beautiful it must be here in winter, and how convenient to be able to ski out your door to the snow lifts, or if you prefer, sit by your fire with a mug of Milo and watch the skiers on the slopes out the living room window. One chair lift to the top was running and it would have been great to go up for a look and hike around, but Kirsty had a really sore back today and was not able to move very freely, quickly or even uprightly. Poor old girl! Continued through the national park somewhat perplexed at how many ‘dead’ trees there seemed to be. Jon wondered if they were just dormant, but in talking to someone later, we discovered they were in fact D-E-A-D, having been killed in the 2003 fires. At a little camping area called Tom Groggin on the NSW / Vic border we headed off road and started our climb up into the mountains through the Alpine National Park. Some pretty rough tracks and a couple of creek crossings made it a great 4WD adventure. A spectacular sight was the sun shining through red leaves on some of the undergrowth of new gum saplings. It looked like little lights in the trees. At Davey’s Plain we came across an old mountain hut almost in its original form. Great for a look and we camped nearby on a ridge. The rustling wind in the trees made it sound like we were near the ocean and the stars were spectacular. We enjoyed good old flour Twisties on the campfire for dessert – haven’t done that for years!

A cold, cold night…apparently it was 6 degrees at 7am this morning. Slow start for us, but we woke up very quickly with a rinse in the creek water. Brrr! Spent the day mostly staring through the blue tint on our windscreen as we headed down steep hills, or staring at the bonnet as we headed up the steep hills. It was slow going…we did 33km in 3 hours…but fun! The track was quite rocky in places and there were a few hair-raising hairpin turns. Jon handled the Navara with great skill making for a day of thrills but no spills. We found a loaded blackberry bush beside the track and picked a few for pancakes tomorrow. Crossed a couple of snow plains and creeks in our travels – the ones in the high country were flowing, the 3 in the valleys were dry. Lunched at Limestone Ck at 3.30 and thought it would be breaking with our routine if we set up camp anytime before dusk, so we continued along to Native Dog Flat where we are set up in a picturesque little spot. Jon has the fire blazing already and the sun doesn’t go down for at least another 2 hours!

 

March 3^rd

Adventure plus on the tracks today. More ups and downs and scrambling, but no dust billows as we had some light rain this morning. Came across 2 big trees down across the track and Jon’s ingenuity kicked into top gear. Using our whole arsenal of tricks – the chain, axe, winch and tree trunk protector  - we spent just under an hour moving the trees enough to slide the Navara through. All of this down in the rain! Great work by Jon! The terrain and vegetation changed a lot on the Nunniong Road. Lots of ferns in the understorey of some fairly dense gums. Many cleared areas and we even passed a loaded logging truck on a pretty narrow section of road. Lunched at Moscow Villa – a little wood hut built in 1943 by Bill Achow – a man who was at that time the local bushfire spotter. He used to spend his days up a tower in the forest and his nights in the hut. No fires for us today, although the descent to Omeo revealed very dry farming / grazing areas. We stopped for a look at the Washington Winch – an old steam driven cable winch used in the early logging days. Quite an impressive old girl. So were the spar trees they used to anchor the cable and hooks to. Found a loaded peach tree beside the road and proceeded to load the camper with fresh fruit! Now camped beside the river at Omeo in a caravan park…..and taking time out to do the washing and a few unfinished projects on the camper.