Day 111 – 113 Snowy Mountains

Since New South Wales has heaps of towns and stops with only short distances in between, we simply had to pick just a few of them to visit, otherwise it would have taken us forever to travel through the state. With Byron Bay, Newcastle and Jervis Bay we felt we had seen what we wanted from the coast and decided to make our way to Victoria via the Alpine Way and Snowy Mountains.

But before going inland, we managed to squeeze in one more beach stay. We found a nice bush/beach camping spot on Gillard beach in Mimosa Rocks National Park. Not many people around and it felt as if we had the beach and place to ourselves (only sharing it with kangaroos and wallabies). With a camping spot overlooking the horizon, we decided to get up REALLY early to see the sunrise (well, Anna did). And what a treat it was; only us, the sunrise and heaps of kangaroos.

In the morning we left the coast behind as we travelled to Cooma and Jindabyne - the start of the Alpine Way. For $17 we got entry to the Kosciuzko National Park and the Alpine Way, including one nights stay. Our first stop was the Charlotte’s Pass, a lookout with great views of the impressive Snowy Mountains and the Mt Kosciuzko peak. For a moment we thought we had made it to the Swedish alps. We had no idea this scenery could be found in Australia.

We camped at Thredbo Diggins, a beautiful camping area just next to a river. Here we also spotted our very first (alive) wombat! Yay!

On our second day on the Alpine way we took the Kosciuzko Express ski lift from Thredbo. From the top of the lift there’s a 13km return walk to the Mt Kosciuzko Summit, Australia’s highest peak (2228m). It was a fairly easy walk (even though the wind was bashing our faces) as the track was covered with mesh pretty much all the way. We had to walk through some patches of snow, but that was just part of the fun. The view from the top was absolutley stunning.

We continued on the winding Alpine Way before crossing the border to Victoria. If you’re ever in the area, make sure to add the Kosciuzko National Park and Alpine Way to your itinerary.