Day 17: Today we walked up a mountain.

After a night of torrential rain we were pleased that when we woke we could no longer hear the drumming of the rain on the roof of the van, and that there was blue sky outside. There was still a chill in the air, even in summer the temperature here is rarely far into double figures because of the altitude.

Heading straight off we commenced our ascent of Mt Kosciuszko at Charlotte Pass. The road took us to 1835m, so we didn't have much to gain to reach the summit, climbing less than 400m in 9km. Most of the route followed an old road as until the late 70s you could drive to almost the summit. So it was pretty easy going.

The scenery was more barren than around Mt Buffalo as we were above the tree line. The slopes around our route were grass and shrub with wild alpine flowers enjoying the summer.

We reached the summit in about 2hrs and sat and enjoyed a brief stop before heading down.

Our route back took us a different way, along the Main Ranges track. This was a tougher walk, but not too difficult. We passed several glacial lakes, and walked over the summit of Mt Curruthers which is a more picturesque mountain than Mt Kosciuszko itself with a steep face to one side.

Towards the end of our trip back we dropped in to the Snowy River valley crossing the river on stepping stones formed from roughly placed boulders.

A total of 21kms walked in the morning and we were both pooped, so a welcome cup of tea was brewed up on our stove by the roadside, and a tin of soup warmed for lunch.

Tomorrow we leave the Australian Alps, it has been well worth the visit and we wish we had more time, but there's plenty more we want to see before we have to go back to Brisbane.