Snowy Mountains Trip - Day 10

Day 10 - 4/5/2011 - Tumut to Jindabyne Big 4

Again we didn’t have an early start - around 9 or 10am before we got on the road.  It took longer than we expected to get to Jindabyne due to climbing the ranges along the Snowy Mountains Highway and a few stops.  One stop was at Kiandra for a quick photo.  The old Court House is the only building remaining from the gold rush ghost town.

Kiandra Court House

We took the Snowy Mountains Highway pretty much all the way to Adaminaby and after that a turnoff to Berridale via Middlingbank Road - this saved us from going into Cooma - it was a minor road and quite narrow but there was hardly any traffic and it was a pleasant drive.  It would be unreal to drive the Snowy Mountains Highway in snow season, cold but I think it would be spectacular!!!

Snowy Mountains Highway

We checked into the Big 4 Discovery Holiday Park around lunch time.  It is located right on the lake and is right near the turn-off to the Alpine Way (Thredbo) and Charlotte’s Pass, Perisher etc.  So we can imagine it would be packed with people in the snow season.  There were only about 3 other vans there during our stay.  All of the van sites were full concrete.  You can understand why because I imagine it would get pretty wet and chopped up in peak season.  We ended up going with our first powered site for the trip.  This was mainly to give the batteries a bit of a top up and to also try out the heating function on the air conditioner.  We ended up using the diesel heater over the air conditioner as it was able to maintain a higher heat quicker.

Jindabyne Big 4

Once we had set up we headed over to the East Jindabyne House to surprise Lise & the gang, (family and friends).  They weren’t expecting us until Thursday.  The house (The Point) is located in the Tyrolean Village in East Jindabyne - only about 5 minutes drive from the centre of Jindabyne - it sits on the top of a hill and has beautiful views over the lake.  Just a gorgeous spot.

We headed back to the caravan park in the afternoon so that we could get the Weber cranked up to do a roast chook.  At around 5pm Lise, Ian, Mum & Dad drove around to the Caravan Park to visit us and to “inspect” the van.  They were very impressed with our little home on wheels (and the roast chook!)  Once they had left (to go home to their centrally heated house) we ate our dinner (yum) and cleaned up - it was starting to get very cold outside by then!

"The Point" from the other side of the Lake Jindabyne

After dinner and showers we went up to the Communal Kitchen Building. It is a fantastic new building which combines male & female amenities, communal kitchen, sauna, games room & lounge room.  We headed to the games room & had a game of pool.  The old guys who were staying in the vans near us came in later too so we had to share the pool table with them - we played the Sega Rally & air-hockey instead.  It was heaps of fun! Wish all the van parks had a games room like that!