Going to a ski resort during summer is really quite strange. Everything is purpose built for the snow and feels rather backwards when it’s not cold. We did a quick stop in Thredbo in the morning just to have a look around and plan our big adventure up that gigantic mountain.
Kind of felt like a shanty village but there was still a surprising amount of people there considering how closed up it was.
Once we had booked & planned our climb we ventured down to the town at the bottom, a base for all of the ski resorts – Jindabyne. Back in 2004, I came down to Perisher Valley to work a snow season in a hotel down there. So, in my youth ;) , I became rather familiar with Jindabyne – well at least all of the pubs & party houses. I certainly saw it from a more mature and level headed perspective this time round. Speaking of mature...Kind of felt like a shanty village but there was still a surprising amount of people there considering how closed up it was.
Tom & I decided to hire a tinny (British Translation – can of beer but in this situation a small aluminium boat) for a few hours. At just 15horsepower, this baby wasn’t going anywhere very quickly AND after possessing a boating license for over ten years I thought I could finally put it to good use. But no, the boat lacked so much power that you didn’t even need a license to operate it. We weren’t there for the power. We were there to... well I don’t really know – hoon (or not so hoon) around in this boat and see Jindabyne from the outside looking in I suppose. Tom took his fishing rod but lost interest pretty quickly once I broke out the illegal beers that I’d smuggled aboard.
We had taken the GPS out on the boat with us. This GPS tracks every movement that you make with a fine blue line according to your position. So, us being the big kids that were we... standing at the helm, we thought it would be a laugh to get a little artistic on our GPS map.
The place we had hired the boats from was actually a Big4 Caravan Park. Big4 is a group of Caravan Parks around Australia that have to meet a certain ‘standard’ in order to be able to be apart of the Big4 chain. Their gardens always have to be impeccably presented, they must have good facilities that are well maintained and it just needs to be a little more fine tuned than most other caravan parks. Just to humour ourselves, when we were returning the keys – I enquired about the cost of an unpowered tent site. Over the last 7 weeks, we have paid for unpowered sites at Caravan Parks varying from $10 - $23 per night. Sometimes we’ve splurged and paid for a powered site which normally costs between $18 - $26 a night. After she tried to sell us an unpowered site in a crappy position for $30 a night, Tom now calls them Big Forkout but I prefer to call them Big Forking expensive!!! Honestly, does it really matter if they haven’t trimmed their hedges this week or perfumed the reception area or hand weeded the driveway. Just give me a good patch of grass in a nice spot... and I’ll keep my ten bucks.
We ventured over to the other side of the lake, in a much more convenient location too I might add, and set up camp at the Lake Jindabyne Caravan Park – overlooking the lake for $23 but unfortunately though no grassy patch – nothing worse than damn prickles smothering your campsite. I know from when I was there last that everything during Ski season is ridiculously expensive – accommodation, tourist attractions, food & beer. We were so amazed at how much even Jindabyne must have just grown accustomed to getting away with charging disgustingly high prices during winter that they think they can in summer as well. For instance – Kosciuzsko National Park is $16 per car per day during summer & $27 per car per day during winter whereas the rest of NSW National Parks is a flat rate of $7. Our last diesel price we paid in Tumut was $1.23 per litre... Jindabyne’s cheapest was $1.39!! A carton of Toohey’s New 30pack cans is normally between $35 - $40 but no Jindabyne’s was $50. I mean come on! What a rort. Don’t get me wrong, you have to go and see the place mainly for its close proximity to the Snowys but gees you wouldn’t want to stay there any longer than you had to.
As the sun went down, it was time for our brains and bodies to switch off in preparation for the big day the following day. We had very little idea of what lay ahead for our big climb up Kosciuszko. Tom couldn’t contain his excitement but I was a little more weary... this is the SUMMIT of Australia. Could I really be fit enough to reach the top? And if I couldn’t, Tom would be so disappointed. Only time would tell...
Tommy found a blue tongued friend...
Poor guy had leaped over the fence and was stuck on the highway side...
No comments:
Post a Comment