Get your Kozzy on

Greetings from the top of Australia! At 2228 metres above sea level this is the Australian sounding Mount Kosciuszko. You’d think climbing the highest mountain in the country would be a challenging three day trek across harsh windswept ridges and vertical escarpments. Four year olds were doing it.

The walk started in the ‘Alpine’ village of Thredbo, which is a ski resort in winter and has one chairlift in operation during summer to transport wannabe mountaineers. Here is Thredbo from the top of the chairlift.

It then rolls up and down along a raised metal path, across a barren landscape of marsh and rocks, reminiscent of Dartmoor. This is Kosciuszko view and the highest point in Australia is that rounded hill with a bit of snow near the top! You can see the pathway crossing the landscape (and going over the source of the Snowy River as it does so).


This little pond is the highest lake in Australia (Lake Cootapatamba) and is home to what seem to be millions of annoying flies.







So after about 5 kilometres of this, the path ascends round the back of Kossy and to the top, which is, on days like these generally full of people having lunch! The views are pretty good, as you can imagine being higher than anywhere else in this country. It’s also a good place to get away from news of the cricket…





After lunching at the top, the route back is along the same way, taking in more of the views, getting attacked by more of the flies and getting sunburnt with the sun on your back!

The chairlift back down to Thredbo was peaceful and scenic, disturbed only by attacking flies and consequently swiping the sunglasses off my face and down into the unrecoverable grassy depths below. The previous pair I lost in the Lake District so it seems me, sunglasses and mountains don’t seem to mix.

A lack of sunnies didn’t affect my bobsled riding ability, shooting down a metal track on a piece of plastic sounds like a good deal of fun and by jove it was!

So, after climbing Australia’s highest peak ice cream and beer was well overdue and despite Thredbo’s best efforts to be quiet and sleepy ice cream and beer was forthcoming!