Snowy Mountains

5th Jan, 2010.
It was extremely windy today so we made the most of the wind by doing some washing (by hand!). We spent the day around our camp. We saw an emu.
As it got closer to dusk we went for a short bushwalk to a deep pond in Thredbo River. We sat on the bank very quietly... and we were rewarded with a sighting of a platypus swimming across the river. It's bill was just out of the water.



6th Jan, 2010.
The kids went on a bobsled at Thredbo... they were given the tickets from a lady near our campsite.
We drove around to Charlotte's Pass, passing the ski slopes of Perisher Valley.

Mt Kosciuszko

4th Jan, 10.
Today we drove to Thredbo and caught a chairlift. At the base of the mountain we were comfortably dressed in t-shirts. As the chairlift climbed higher the winds reached 70km/h and we were freezing. Once at the top we were all very glad that we packed jackets.



After walking 2km past the top of the chairlift we arrived at the Mt. Kosciuszko Lookout. The mountain in the middle of the pic below is Mt. Kosciuszko. If you look carefully you can see the brown crate track leading to the summit.



The kids were very happy to find snow...



We made it to the summit... a total of 6.5km hike from the top of the chairlift. Mt Kosciuszko is 2228m above sea level, the highest mountain in Australia. The water travels 500km from the top of the mountain out to the sea.



The 6.5km hike back down to the chairlift was much easier than the hike up.
13KM - AN ACCOMPLISHMENT WE CAN ALL BE PROUD OF... YEAH!

Wee Jasper

1st January, 2010
We travelled to Wee Jasper... and headed straight for Carey's Caves where we met Jeff our tour guide.
Later that evening Jeff visited our camp site to listen to Daniel play his guitar... he brought along his Mandolin and they jammed together for some time.



Jeff told us about Signature Cave, gave us directions and a map of the upper and lower levels of the cave...

2nd Jan, 10
We had the best time ever exploring the cave, it's mazes, tunnels and crevices. We walked, slid, crawled and shimmied our way through the cave for several hours.











After that we swam in the creek.
We went to Micalong Creek and climbed up the side of a cliff that had a rope attached to trees to assist in the climb. Then we swam in the flowing creek below the waterfall.

Wee Jasper was way more fun than we ever expected :)

Canberra

30th Dec, 09
We went to the War Memorial for two hours in the afternoon... only completed WW1 section.



31st Dec, 09
We returned to the War Memorial for a few more hours... the kids loved the Discovery Zone.







After lunch the kids spent a few hours at Questacon.

New Years Eve was pretty quiet, watched the fireworks from the camp site with other visitors to the Caravan Park.

Wombeyan Caves

27th – 30th December, 2009.
We spent that past few days at Wombeyan Caves exploring the world of stalictites, staligmites, shawls and flowstones.




We went on two guided tours through the Wollondilly and Junction Caves with our guide Jonny Lewis. We also went through the self-guided tour of Fig Tree Cave.



Jonny suggested that we do the Mares Forest Creek Bushwalk and upon arrival to walk upstream up and over rocks to other beautiful swimming holes. We took his advice and were rewarded with an experience we will neer forget... swimming through a river boarded each side by steep cliffs revealing many new caves.











We spoke to some other locals who leant us their torch to go through the Tinted Cave, which although was small it was exciting to be doing it on our own.
This morning Rodney and I went for a bushwalk to Wombeyan Falls, we watched the sun rise over a valley and saw much wildlife including a male and female peacock.
Now on our way to Canberra....

Camp Cobark & Barrington Tops

On Wednesday 16th December 2009, we finally began the first leg of our trip... off to Camp Cobark. We travelled west one and a half hours to the camping ground at Camp Cobark beside the Cobark River. We relaxed in the shallow rapids and swam in the waterhole. FINALLY TIME TO SIT BACK AND RELAX!!!





On Thursday we got up early and went horse riding to the Barrington River and through the gorgeous countryside of Allen Shultz's property. It was a very hot day, getting up to 38C, so we spent the rest of the day in the river beside our camp. In the early afternoon we travelled to Gloucester to collect some supplies and have a coffee at Perenti's.

On Friday, the temperature had dropped considerably, so we went for a few short walks at Barrington Tops. It amazed us how varied the vegetation throughout different areas of the national park is. We spent the rest of the day lazing about.





On Saturday, we head to Sydney to begin our family xmas celebrations.

Monday 14th December, 2009.

Running a bit behind schedule... hoping to leave on Wednesday.

Feeling pretty relaxed now that most of the preparation has been completed.
Also enjoying this comfortable Old Bar weather :)