Victorian Alps

10th Jan, 2010
We went for a huge drive today through the Victorian Alps.

Our first stop was at Fainter Falls, where we walked to a beautiful waterfall.



We drove through Falls Creek Alpine Village and continued to Anglers Rest, where we stopped to eat and swim... another 40C day... too hot for hiking!
We drove the entire loop to Omeo, Mt Hotham and then back to Tawonga.

A huge relief to jump in the river and cool off :)

Bright

9th Jan, 2010
We arrived at Mongan's Bridge Caravan Park at Tawonga, which is opposite a river and has huge shady trees. The kids have been swinging from a rope, as well as jumping out of trees into the river.

We went to a gorgeous little town called "Bright", with shady tree-lined streets, and a huge community area beside the river with a free slide and a diving board. They even have lifeguards on duty. The temperature reached 40C, yet the water remained a cool 12.5C.

Wodonga

7th & 8th Jan, 10.
We crossed the Victorian border.
Spending a few days researching, shopping and washing sheets.
Heading to the high country tomorrow.

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.