20 October 2012 Cooma Snowy Mountain Tourist Park, NSW

What a joy it was this morning to look out toward the lake, the shore fifty metres or less from our doorstep and see more than a dozen kangaroos grazing in such a relaxed fashion. Who would have thought it?

In fact, I had wandered out with my camera last evening after dinner, and no swim after all, and observed the great mob of roos who skipped and leapt about the shore of the lake, a little wary but really quite relaxed about the few random campers who had ventured into this part of the world.

Our neighbours on the lake shore

The day dawned sunny and clear, the jet trails more numerous than the wisps of cloud, promising more of the same as we headed off out eastwards across the Kosciuszko National Park. After hitching up, we were off, along the Snowy Mountains Highway, following the Blowering Reservoir shore southwards, as it fizzled into its upper reaches, and then within view of Talbingo which is the village serving the dam on the reservoir of the same name, another part of the great Snowy Hydro Scheme before we started the steep ascent up into the mountains. 

The road winds steeply up between Big Talbingo and Black Perry; the road signs caution that trucks and busses should not travel at any speed more than 40 kph. We, alas, were not able to reach much more than 25 kph! The poor quality diesel we had topped up with at Gundagai (Shell no less!) belched blackness into the otherwise pristine mountain air however we arrived on top of the Cumberland Range at 1,183 metres ASL without mishap. Once we had conquered the winding ascent, the highway improved radically and we drove along a most marvellous road, across the high reaches of the Snowy Mountains, passing signs warning of brumbies and wombats but seeing only the former, on through to Kiandra which sits at 1,400 metres ASL which was visited by us back in late April of this year. 

I had suggested to Chris that we actually pause at Kiandra and undertake the heritage trail which traces the intrepid miners and settlers during the gold rush days. Earlier this year, we had balked at the idea due to the alpine wind and temperatures whipping us back into the vehicle. Today with the temperature at about 10 degrees, it would have been reasonable to consider the day far more pleasant for such a jaunt, however the wind was brisk and we decided to abort such an adventure, yet again. And so we drove on, across roads we had travelled before, across the plateau, then descending down to Adaminby almost 400 metres lower, where we stopped to buy our treasured Weekend Australian newspaper.

Our camp at the Blowering Reservoir

As we had come on down the route to the northern end of Lake Ecumbene, we had observed a huge number of trees and branches recently decimated by wind. On arrival at Adambinby, we learned there had indeed been a huge storm through the entire region, even as far as Canberra, last Tuesday night. Trees had been felled by the extreme winds through the entire region, and the week before that, the region had been subjected to unseasonal snow. The back roads were still impassable in many places, and worse was still to come, with snow forecasted for Monday. We, fortunately, will be moving toward the coast by then.

We had travelled much of the road beyond Adambinby, when we drove up from Jinabyne into the National Park, however a route travelled in reverse is always anew, and so it was today, as we travelled across the plains south of this small town, grazed by merino sheep, most having lambed relatively recently. Ten kilometres from Cooma, we descended yet again, this time truly onto the great Monaro Plains, land so very different from that we have travelled through the other side of the mountains.

Pulling into Cooma, we found our way back to our park along the Cooma Creek, now a familiar spot, flat and caravan friendly. We lunched and then called at the Information Centre, confirming that there was indeed only the one caravan park here and checking out the tyre service centres. The main reason for breaking our four day run on free camping was to ensure we have power and reception for the television broadcast of the final Bledisloe Cup match between the All Blacks and the Wallabies tonight. It is of course a foregone conclusion, but a small window of opportunity for a team to beat the invincible All Blacks.

We wandered up to the several addresses of garages offering services related to our tyre problems but found them already closed if they had indeed been open today. We will hang about until Monday and deal with the matter then; we have however identified the places we will need to call into.

Instead we headed up to the NSW Correctional Centre Museum located adjacent to the Cooma Gaol. This excellent (free) museum of incarceration from the First Fleet convicts through to today’s right next door is manned by real live prisoners, dressed in their prison greens. Obviously they are low security offenders and seemingly very chatty, warm and normal. However, as my dear husband informs me, even the most hideous murderers or sex offenders, can be the very nicest of people. Think of your local scoutmaster or parish priest?

We would thoroughly recommend a visit to the museum which examines not only the history of prisons in Australia including the more recent uprising at the Bathurst Prison in 1974 when so much physical destruction was carried out, but also discusses capital punishment, rehabilitation and so much more.

We finished our visit to the museum, passing through the small craft shop where there is an excellent collection of art and crafts fashioned by the prisoners for sale. There we found a female warder discussing the layout of the shop in an animated fashion with an inmate. It was all quite bizarre.

This caravan park is back on the road toward Jindabyne and Adaminby, tucked under the hill but thankfully not out of television aerial sight. The chap who checked us in is from Te Aroha, New Zealand, just up the road from so much of my past life and that of our daughter. Small world!