With beautiful clear, sunny, blue skies, a cool 12 degrees, we are heading pretty much north and slightly west, for about 110km, to Yarrangabilly Village free camp which is still in the Kosciuszko National Park.    We left Cooma with great memories and with Jill & Michael, the owners, shouting 'safe travels' and waving from the office door.   How nice!  

 

Great roads, up in the mountains – get to 1250m on the Great Dividing Range then just outside of Adaminaby (love that word) yellow road-markings, rather than white, tell you, you are in seasonal snow country.   Chain Bays every couple of kilometres and, again, the lanky gums hugging the road with scrubby bush vying for position to grab some sunlight.   The roads are so smooth making for great driving.   The higher we get the taller the red reflector markers get on the side of the road. They are around 2 metres high now.   The snow obviously builds up very high on the road side where it is graded to.

Stopped at Sawyers Hill Rest House.    It has been restored but still open to be used as emergency accommodation and bad weather.   Steep climb and then down into the old Kiandra Goldfields, open fields in a valley with small rolling hills 1400m above sea level – climbing again to overnight free camp at Yarrangabilly Village.   This is brumby country – Kiwis think of NZ Kaimanawa Wild Horses.

Yarrangabilly Caves is the reason for our stopover at this spot and our first night of free camping –Free because it is and free and unencumbered with no power or water hookup.   We are totally self-sufficient and are really looking forward to spending an overnight here.

The area is by the river and set down in a bit of a hollow from the main Snowy Mountain Highway.   Temperature is around 36 degrees as we set up camp beside the river next to a large tree.   We are here around 10am and afforded some morning shade but there is little relief in the afternoon we are sure.

Set up in no time and off to Yarrangabilly Caves.   There are 3 caves and we choose to go through only one, the South Glory Cave which is not an escorted guided tour.  

Not bad, but very dark and gloomy although good path and railings and steps, but it was still worth a visit.   We took light sweaters with us (I reckoned it could be quite cool) and thank goodness. At one particular point the wind rushed in and was pure ice!   Bill now believed me!   When we got outside, the temperature was around 36degrees.   Ridiculous!

Back to camp for a discovery walk along the river. After clambering around shale cliff walls we found a lovely spot to sit in the cold water, lie back on the rocks and cool off!    Heaven!

We briefly spoke to the people in the van close by this morning – seemed a little distant and not overly friendly.   We hadn’t seen them again and although the 4wd was parked by the van there was no activity.   Until…..   I could hear a noise which sounded like a small battery operated saw – a bit like a dentist drill maybe! I could see they were sitting huddled over a small table outside and the noise continued for quite some time.   They moved to their 4wd and loaded some 20lt plastic pails in the back then back to the drilling/sawing.

Bill wasn't impressed when I told him I reckoned they were making trinkets out of human bone, to sell at the markets!   He reckons I watch too many crime shows and have a great imagination!   Well, let me tell you, he did a double take when one of them started to play (badly) on a banjo or ukulele or something, Dueling Banjos from Deliverance!   What a crack up.

As the sun set the temperature dropped a little, then plummeted!   Frogs Hollow this was!  

4 degrees in the morning.   Thank goodness we had pre-empted the cold and got the blankets out before going to bed.

Nothing to do here, so off to our next free camp – Yachting Point Road Reserve at Blowering Dam, yet another part of the Snowy River Scheme.