The Alpine Way . . . . . .

After a great stay at Beechworth it was time to head for Canberra with an overnight cabin stay in Cooma. The route for the day was planned and in the GPS and everything looked straight forward and easy, should be there early and time to relax.

All was going well, through some beautiful little towns to Corryong then to head up to the Snowy Mts Highway and over the Great Dividing Range to Cooma. Well that was until we did a left turn and came up against a large flashing sign saying the road was closed further up. Ooops! Time to take stock of the map book and make new plans. The best option was to go via the "Alpine Way" through Thredbo Village and on to Jindabyne and finally Cooma. The good thing about a detour is you get to see scenery you would not have seen otherwise. Well this was a great detour. The road was marked as Not Suitable for Caravans and trucks. It is fully sealed now or we would not have gone that way.

What a beautiful road full of twists and turns and the occasional hairpin bend. There was very little other traffic so the going was great. Down, down , down on a road cut into the side of the mountain, past some of the Snow Mt Scheme power stations. Then the road did a right-angle turn left and headed up, up and up. This half was even twistier that the first with speeds down to 30kmh on a lot of the corners. As we climbed up around the edge of MT Kosciuszko the tree began to change to the Alpine eucalypts. The temperature dropped down to about 8 degrees and then we started to notice the remnants of snow along the edge of the road. The temperature was high enough that we didn't have to worry about ice on the road. The scenery was amazing. Unfortunately with the very narrow road there was nowhere to pull over but at least we could go slowly to look as there were no other cars around. We topped out at 1592m as we went over the top.

The first safe opportunity we had to stop was on the road above Thredbo Village. This gave us a chance to catch our breath and take in the scenery of the snowfields. Well at least there was snow on the tops of the mountains even if the ski runs were still grass. From here it was all downhill to Jindabyne and on to Cooma. The twisting roads had taken longer than the original plan but boy was it worth it.

There is only one caravan park in Cooma and we planned to take a cabin and now after arriving late a cabin was a necessity, except for the sign on the front of reception. NO cabins, No to everything except powered tent sites. Why was this quiet place booked out when it wasn't ski season. I'll just ask just in case. Our intercoms were still on when Trish heard me ask and we found out that there was one "Shearers Hut" ( fancy name for very small cabin with no en-suite ) Who cares it was clean, warm and cheap. It turned out that there was a big Motocross weekend on in town. Iheard a huge whimper from Trish over the intercom when she saw the steep road down to where the cabin was this disappeared when she realized there was a suitable bike parking spot just above the cabin. We did have to unhitch the trailer and wheel it down as there was no way I could turn around down there. Tomorrow is another day and another adventure but we will both have that ride burnt into our memories for a long time.

Dave