January 20, 2009

• Being on the tallest part of Australia

  Last weekend the 17th of January 2009 I've conquered the tallest mountain in Australia, Mount Kosciuszko together with Melvin, James and Isabella. The idea came from Melvin and James who are just hungry to do as much as they can in their short 1 year exchange in Australia. Initially, I wanted to do Ayers Rock in Alice Springs, but that drive would've taken me 27 hours ONE WAY, even needing me to drive through Adelaide (as though just driving to Adelaide wasn't crazy enough). Kosciuszko was no easy feat as well. It's situated 6-7 hours away from Melbourne and in a different state - NSW, but just by a few dozen kilometers.

  We left Melbourne at around 3am, needing to wait for James to finish his graveyard shift. Our aim was to get there in time for the climb, just put up the night and head home the next day as both James and I had to work. It was almost the same route as Fall Creek and Mount Buffalo, just that instead of the Great Alpine Road, it was just the Alpine Road. Lol. Not that it's not a great road though. The drive and scenery was stunning,. About an hours worth of none stop mountain ranges and natural beauty.

  

  The Alphine region holds a different feel to it during summer. Quite pleasant.. once you're in the car under the air conditioning. Good thing I had Melvin drive the second half, was falling dead right after Warrangatta.

  We arrived at our destination, a town called Thredbo, at 11am. Thredbo is located at the based of Mt. Kosciuszko and is built primarily as a skii resort, very identical to the one in Falls Creek. It was quite funny to see these resorts during summer when it should be filled with snow. The chairlifts are all closed but one, and instead of snowboards and skiis we wee people mountain biking and hiking. There was also a dry bobsled which we tried. Pretty fun!

  

  Our climb of Kociuszko began right after we found a carpark, got some information and had a quick sandwich lunch. One confession - we took a chairlift which minused off about 2-3 hours of our otherwise would've been 5-6 hour hike. Instead the hike became a 2.5 hour march to the summit.

   

  The walk was pretty easy, wasn't too steep apart from one or two points. There's a metallic walkway for most of the hike. The plateau was.. charming. Lots of flowers, creeks, ridges and rocks.

  One observation I have of Australia - all the nice places are mainly because of rocks. Let's explore that:

  - Great Ocean Road  = Rocks
  - The Grampians = Rocks
  - Ayers Rock =  One Huge Rock
  - Mt Kosciuszko = Rocks

  No wonder they have a slang here called "Rock on, dude!". Their main attractions are rocks.

  Anyway, back to the trip. Along the hike, my curious stare into the odd creeks revealed something interesting. There are fish in the water! Not bad considering we were more than 2.2km above sea level. Instinctively I had to catch one! So I did with my bare hands, but released it right after that. It looked like baby trout, but I can't be sure.
  

  

  Apart from the rocks, flowers. fish, huge New South Wales summer flies.. the hike there was pretty uneventful. At the peak itself, it didn't really look grand because all the surrounding terrain was pretty high up as well, unlike Mount Kota Kinabalu which was the only tall mountain in the region. I remembered mentioning before somewhere in this blog (can't seem to find it) that to feel on top, you always need something to look down to. In this case, literally it's true. Metaphorically? Go figure =)

  
  Standing on the tallest part of Australia

  Despite the lack of a majestic scene, the thought of conquering Mount Kosciuszko is quite satisfying. Even marked the peak location on my GPS (below) just for fun.

  

  After accomplishing the climb we headed back to town where a blues festival was being held. Of course, we have to pay to be part of it - thus decided not to, but somehow at one point we managed to walk in undetected. However,  I was too tired to fully enjoy the whole thing. After looking around abit with, we decided to catch sunset. The problem is, we needed to wait another 2 hours for it. So we checked into our motel. It was pretty decent for $20 per person and it would've been cheaper if we got 5 people (it was $80 per room), a place called Pender Lea, which is only a 10 minute drive from Thredbo. It featured house riding as well. But there were no complimentary stuff like coffee, milk and that sorta stuff. Not even soap or towels provided. In fact you had to bring your own linens for the beds. But it' reasonable for the price, it was a budget trip afterall.

  Unfortunately, I never left the motel for sunset and slept in till the next morning at 9am, making it 13 hours worth of sleep. I guess I needed it cause it was a 6 hour drive straight home to Melbourne. All in all, an awesome trip! =)

   
  Left: Tracking to the summit. Right: Feeling the "feel" outside Jindabyne

    

   
  Left: Melvin and James did some natural rock climbing. Right: Under the statue of Count Paul Edmund Strzelecki, the first European to reach Mount Kosciuszko whom he named after his Polish hero

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