Yesterday was an excellent day, a very full day and one all the more amazing because Chris was up half the night before watching the latest big European cycle race, the Liege – Bastogne – Liege. Amazingly, even with it being one of those mornings when the yoghurt making, making up the milk and the decanting of the milk powder all coincided, and slow rising, we were out the door soon after 9 am, under slightly improved skies.
We drove back toward Cooma as far as Berridale then north toward Lake Eucumbine. This lake is one of those constructed for the hydro scheme; the largest of the sixteen water reservoirs of one sort or another. Lake Eucumbine, pronounced you-come-been, was built between 1956 and 1958, flooding the town of Adaminaby in the process and holds nine times the volume of Sydney harbour.
We skirted around the south and eastern side of the lake, joining the Snowy Mountain Highway and soon arrived at the new town of Adaminaby. Approached from the south, it seemed a little like Cooma, a tidy little settlement nestled in the low hills and dressed in autumn gold. On closer inspection however, it proved to be only a fraction of the size. Adaminaby is now situated safely up on 1,017 metres ASL and known as “Home of the Big Trout”. We guessed it must be this large sculpture hidden under a great burka of tarpaulins at the entrance of the town. When the river was dammed, over one hundred buildings were relocated including three churches and two schools, by truck along the eight kilometres. It must have been quite a sight. Looking at the village today, you would never guess it hadn’t been there forever.
We drove on down to Old Adaminaby or what is left of the old town; a caravan park and a few houses perched up on the hill well above the lake level. The lake when full has a surface area of 14,500 hectares and a shoreline of 224 kilometres. The water level can vary up to forty eight metres depending upon inflows and the operating regime of the Snowy Hydro Scheme. Today the level appeared quite low; the banks are bare and not at all attractive. But it seems I was alone with that opinion. There were nearly a dozen vehicles and trailers parked by the boat ramp; it is obviously a fisherman’s paradise.
Way back in the mid-1830s John Cosgrove and two York brothers claimed Adaminaby as a sheep and cattle run, although passing shepherds and casual settlers had been this way before. It remained a cattle station until gold was discovered up at Kiandra. From a convenient staging camp it grew to a small settlement complete with an inn. In 1860 the town of Seymour was laid out, but the name was confused with Seymour in Victoria, one we visited just north of Melbourne a couple of months ago, and so was renamed after the station. It remained a service township for the dairying industry about and a copper mine until that closed in 1913.
We drove further up the lake to Anglers Rest which was a spot that Katrin-of-Cooma had recommended as a camping destination to us. There are heaps of residences here, probably holiday baches for fisher folk. The caravan park seems well situated but there is no news agency anywhere close. We could have used it as a base to explore, however we were managing very well from Jindabyne.
Further on at the most northern point of the lake we called into Providence Portal, which again is the location of a quiet little caravan park but more interestingly for us, where the water from the Tantangara Reservoir is released into Lake Eucumbene. It pours out of a tunnel at great force and helps one understand the awesome power of the water that is harnessed in this great scheme.
Just a few kilometres up the road, we passed through the north east entrance to the National Park. Here there is no entry fee. We climbed up through the mountains passing over saddles of 1,250 metres ASL and 1,480 metres and out onto the Kiandra plains at 1,390 metres. Here gold was discovered in 1859 but the rush only lasted the year, making it one of the shortest gold rushes in Australian history. In March 1860 there were 3,000 people on the diggings, by April there were 10,000, today there are none.
Kiandra did however have a longer lasting contribution to history, being the birth place of skiing in Australia. It started in 1861 when Norwegian miners introduced skiing and ski-making to their fellow fortune hunters during Kiandra’s gold rush. Ski races, clubs, chalets and champion skiers all form part of Kiandra’s remarkable ski history which endured into the 1970s, when skiing in the north of Kosciuszko moved to Mount Selwyn.
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| Cold and windy Kiandra |
Today only the the courthouse remains having had a multidude of uses, and there is a heritage walking trail around the area which would draw one’s attention to other relics remaining. Yesterday the cold wind blew across the treeless bleak plain and we paused here to have lunch, inside the landcruiser, unwilling to face the elements.
We soon moved on, turning off the Snowy Mountains Highway onto the road toward Cabramurra, passing yet another park entrance, this time a fee collection point but closed today advertising the fact that the road ahead from Cabramurra to Khancoban was closed.
However we were keen to visit Cabramurra, the highest town in Australia at 1,488 metres ASL. We pressed on past the Mount Selwyn skifields, continuing steeply up into forest until we arrived at this purpose built settlement, home to Snowy Hydro employees and their families. The dwellings are all very uniform with their roofs steeply lined up against the elements. The one service building we found was a multipupose café, post office, general store, information office and staffed by a very friendly woman who was happy to explain to us that the alternative route continuing our anti-clockwise circuit of the park did have an alternative.
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| Cabramurra |
We retraced our route about four kilometres then headed north and down steeply over the edge of the escarpment, down past the Talmut Underground Hydro Station one kilometre inside and 244 metres deep into the mountain. We followed the Talmut River down through one of the deepest, steepest and narrow gorges we had ever travelled. We started to climb out of the valley again where the Talbingo Reservoir starts. We continued to climb up through the forest, finally travelling south east and out of the National Park, but still the road was flanked by State Forests, with the odd pocket of farmland tucked away in clearings.
We stopped at the Snowy Cloud Memorial Rest Area from where we had lovely views of the Snowy Mountains. The weather had cleared considerably, the sun was shining and there was enough blue sky in evidence to provide contrast to the deep green wooded hills.
Not too far up into the mountains is the site where Australia’s first big civil airline disaster occurred in March 1931. The pilot, co-pilot and all six passengers were lost, and their remains were not discovered for another twenty seven years, when in 1958, a worker on the Snowy Hydro Scheme wandering about the ranges photographing the mountain scenery, happened upon some of the wreckage in the undergrowth. The rest area is tastefully set up with excellent information and in a lovely spot from where one has marvellous views up the Maragle Valley where returned servicemen were allotted land for farming, and have all done a fine job of carrying out their task.
Finally we came out into the Tooma Valley, which in turn runs into the Murray valley, and we were just a few kilometres from our old friend, the Murray River and the state border. Just for a lark, we left our route and travelled the short distance to where the road to Cooryong crosses the river. Both Chris and I were surprised how large and forceful the river was, even at this very early stage.
There was still over a hundred kilometres to camp. We re-entered the park at Khancoban, and working on the premise that we were just passing through, did not stop to purchase a pass but pressed on up and over the most amazing roads, finally coming down over a saddle at 1,580 metres ASL, and down to Thredbo, world famous for its ski faciltiies. We still pressed on, now following the Thredbo River down to Lake Jinabyne, passing tantilising beauty spots, but promising to call and explore further when we come this way again tomorrow, this time displaying a current park pass.
As we proceeded through the falling dusk, we watched carefully for roos and wombats but thankfully saw none, and it was quite dark when we finally arrived at camp. I insisted Chris put his feet up while I cooked dinner; a reversal of our usual roles. However he had been behind the wheel for nearly eight hours covering 395 kilometres. It had been a big day!
Today was a very different kettle of fish. When I first peeked outside in the early hours of dawn, I was sure that we were in for good weather. However by the time we breakfasted, it was clearly going to be a bleak day. We had intended to return along the southern edge of the National Park, however it seemed pointless to venture out into the inclement weather, unlikely to see much through the clouds. We decided to pop up to the Woolworths Supermarket to stock up given that tomorrow is ANZAC Day, as Australasia closes for most of the day. We were back for lunch and supplemented our already cut lunch with yet another can of soup, all of which did nothing to change our minds about venturing out again.
Later in the afternoon when the sun made a brief appearance, we set off on foot to retrace our walk of the afternoon of our arrival, just to get the circulation going. The second hand ski-suits and other gear set out on racks to tempt the tourist did seem more attractive today, however we will just have to make do with our regular clothes and leave all the snow stuff for the ski-bunnies who will surely start to descend on the resort soon.
We were glad to return to the caravan, even if it deperately does lack adaquate insulation. Thank goodness for electricity and our little fan heater. Perhaps we did ourselves a disservice by not returning to the park and exploring Khancoban and Thredbo further, and we must confess to having been beaten by Mount Kosciuszko. We did not get to the summit nor have we seen the summit except from the distance of the Alps in Victoria. Perhaps we will return in the summertime and do all we have neglected to do now?
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