Archives for January 2008

It isn’t customary for me to take shots from the car while I’m driving, so, though it can be a bit challenging for me to not be the driver especially from a carsick point of view, it was good to have the camera to keep my focus outside the vehicle. I managed to turn out one or two driving shots that are interesting enough to make it onto flickr. This place looks cute… don’t imagine you’d see much of it in a snowstorm though…

The bulk of day two of the trip was spent checking out Thredbo the only field with a chair that runs in the summer time. They appear to get a fair bit of traffic even at this time of the year, most of them are tourists checking out the mountains, you can see from the image below a bit of the lay of the land. The lift we went up on Kocsiuskzo Express Chairlift and many of these photos were taken from there or on the lovely walk across the top of the mountains. Next time I go I’ll go a bit better prepared with bug spray the flies were REVOLTING and swarmed on us… really ewww… oh and I’ll take warmer gear and water, and most importantly allow a bit more time up my sleeve for exploring. I’d like to get a look at Mt Kozciuskzo sometime. To see the detail you really need to open the pic in flickr and check it out in the large view.

We rode the lift up (like duh) and the light got a bit weird at one point (or my camera did.. who knows?) and this image was the result… I think it looks like a reasonable set for a horror flick, don’t you?

As noted in the previous post Australia has an ‘alpine’ (ish) region… ok, so our
Alps aren’t really alps, too short and flat if Yay’s impeccable recall of relevant school facts are to be believed (I have no doubt that they are). So the Australian alps are nothing to rival Ms Mac’s rampant Swiss variety, but they are clearly enough to produce a 14 week ski season at the appointed times (all going well). Truth is if you’re totally mad keen to ski a LOT then you’d go to NZ or to the US (yes, or Europe) but to scratch that itch without having to pay screeds of dollars and spend ridiculous amounts of time traveling you really can get reasonable relief here…
However, let’s not dwell on the white cold stuff of which I’m not exactly enamoured…
I think you’ll agree it’s pretty darn pretty in the summertime too!

This is a stitched pano from the lift terminus. You really need to embiggen it to get its full effect…

This is looking back towards the chairlift terminus that grey square in the middle.

Assorted Rocks

Alpine flora

Summer Use of the Mountain

Jindabyne services 4 principal ski areas. Thredbo, Perisher Valley, Blue Cow and Charlotte Pass. Perisher and Blue Cow are run by a single outfit primarily owned by the infamous Packer family and are usually known as ‘Perisher Blue’, Thredbo is run by another outfit and Charlotte Pass by a third. (Like you care really)… anyway, the Goodtime crowd have a long-standing arrangement with Charlotte Pass so we got a first hand look at a ski resort in the summer time… enough of an incentive to want to see it in winter. The photos of the place under a cover of snow are like a fairy story… still… it’s pretty attractive in the summer time too!!!

Charlotte Pass. The large building in the front is the main lodge. Just like a bought one, old fashioned wood fires huge high ceilings, a bar and a nite club and 5 star meals. Looking forward to heading back there in winter some time.

Random Lake – on the road out of Charlotte Pass. Another of my ‘taken from the car shots’
It was a cracker of a day, we slept well our 2nd night of the Goodtime experience. It didn’t hurt, that as I was travelling with the blender we turned out a respectable margarita or 2 to go with our nachos for dinner… Can anyone say ‘Olé’?

There’s quite some distance between Sydney and Melbourne not exactly one you’d
want to drive in a day… So it behooves one to find a place to stop on the way.
We did.
Shoe has relatives at Jindabyne, an alpine town that was reborn during the building the Snowy River project. Do you know the Snowy River? It’s a rather ambitions hydro electric power project based in Australia’s only alpine region (I know, alps, in Australia, who’d have thought?!).
It is ironic that even getting to Jindabyne was not without its stories. The drive to Jindabyne from Sydney takes in Goulburn and then Canberra and in all probably took around 5 hours to complete.
Goulburn is a country town and hub or much of the rural populace of that area. It reminds me a little of some of the towns in NZ in terms of what’s available and the feel of the place. One of the icons of road travel is lunch at the Paragon Café. “Here you go luv. pie and chips” and who are we to balk at such a trend…

The pie and chips filled the gap as did a visit to the local Sanity record store where we did what we could to augment our listening pleasure for the long stretches of driving and to bolster the local economy with our hard earned cash.
Goulburn’s other claim to fame is the ‘Big Merino’ a nod to the prosperity gained at that great breed’s indignity (well, have you ever seen a shorn sheep? Poor nekkid wee things…) as you can see, he’s a little shy and takes advantage of road furniture to preserve his identity.

On the way out of town we hit a rather impressive hailstorm. (A hailstorm – welcome to summer in Australia…) and so we had to park the car on the side of the road and ride it out there was certainly no driving through it. Visibility was dreadful and actually, the hailstones weren’t exactly small… it wasn’t until we stopped in Jindabyne that we could check that there wasn’t any damage done to the car. Bit of a relief as the Golf is new and damage so early in its tenure would have been rather upsetting to its ever-loving owner.

At the mercy of the weather gods…

Ground Cover.
As we got higher in altitude on the road between Canberra (we didn’t stop there… seen it… got the t-shirt) much of the pasture took on a purple hue… that swathe in the middle of the picture is actually purple… sorry dodgy camera phone shot!!! I had to ask once we reached our destination what it was… apparently it’s called Patterson’s Curse and is safe pasture for cows but does horses a terrible disservice… Good to know for when I’m ever grazing horses…

Anyway, we finally made it to Jindabyne in the early evening and our hosts couldn’t have been more hospitable. For their blog-safety let’s just call them Mr. and Mrs. Goodtime… Barbeque dinner on the balcony overlooking lake Jindabyne… didn’t I mention Jindabyne had a lake?? Oh… it’s all part of that Snowy River Scheme apparently the town got flooded out when the lake ‘went in’ mad crazy things these power schemes do…

The view from the Goodtime Estate…