Kosciuszko National Park Travel Guide

 iandsmith Says:  I started making up time on the way back but that got thwarted when I left my Christmas sunnies behind while changing lens on the camera. I managed to retrieve them but was sweating when I did so, perhaps more at the thought that I may have lost them than pure physical... 

 iandsmith Says:  The walk was pleasant until just before the waterfall when it got warmer as the vegetation thinned out. The fall itself was higher than I expected and was the only time in 6kms you actually could see water except from where the trail commenced.I loved the tree in pic four,... 

 iandsmith Says:  After lunch I was let off the leash to do the Waterfall Walk. It was getting a trifle warmer because we had descended a few hundred metres and much of this walk was protected from the wind so there was no respite there. Still, it was a whole lot cooler than on the coast.I... 

 iandsmith Says:  The ever present wind got slowly worse. We’d left the storm clouds behind when we headed south from Jindabyne and climbed once again into the mountains. However, here at Charlotte Pass we could see fresh threatening masses moving in as the trees were buffeted and the last of... 

 iandsmith Says:  The flora was abundant but the legacy of the 2003 bushfires was everywhere. Dead limbs still reached for the sky, slowly being overtaken by new growth but it had some way to go.I finished opposite the carpark and tried thumbing a lift back, striking it lucky at the fifth... 

 iandsmith Says:  Still, the weather was the main thing to keep one’s eye on. Clouds were banking up on the horizon and it actually spat rain about three times but never dumped thank goodness.Towards the top of the 4 km track it crosses the river a few times, on well made bridges except for... 

 iandsmith Says:  It all started so well. There I was, wallet in hand, ready to buy an annual pass and, what did I hear? “If you have a pension card it’s free to get into the Snowy Mountains NP.” A wave of euphoria came over me. I was thinking skiing on the cheap, how good would that be, but,... 

 Psycho_Smurf Says:  During summer time, the chairlift from thredbo closes at 4:30pm. We missed this by a good two hours, which meant a lousy 5km walk down a steep and wandering path, in near darkness. We had to fling around 4 snakes off the path with a stick we found, as all other attemps to... 

 iandsmith Says:  DEAD HORSE, DEAD TREES, DEAD ROCKS, IS THERE LIFE UP HERE?It was amazing how dog tired we were after each day and yet, in the morning, we felt revived enough to attack yet another walk. This time it was to be Dead Horse Gap from Crackenback and then down Thredbo Creek back... 

 iandsmith Says:  We were on our way back from a day's skiing, having parked at Guthega. The latter is a critical point because, if you go to Perisher you may get caught a kilometre or more from the carpark on busy days, such as it was on this particular occasion.The down side of Guthega is... 

 iandsmith Says:  We reached the Snowy River crossing and our first problem – Lorraine froze at the thought of this rock hopping exercise across the icy waters and had to be cajoled across the double span but she bravely fought her fears and scrambled across. From here it was uphill pretty... 

 iandsmith Says:  If you only have time to do one walk in Kosciuszko NP, then this is the one I'd recommend. Here is the story of how Lorraine and I did it.We’d had such a hard time of it the day before that, by mutual agreement, we figured the 21 km hike via Main Range and Summit Trails to... 

 iandsmith Says:  Other trekkers came and went as we grafted our way along the narrow trail past snow gums until, at times, the trail itself was indiscernible with fresh summer shrub branches overgrowing its meandering ways yet somehow you knew where it went and moved on, stumbling... 

 iandsmith Says:  Today the wind was almost mild by Snowy Mountains' standards, just below gale force as it sent Lorraine’s hair in untold varieties of patterns before she succumbed to a beanie which relieved her discomfort a little. It’s the kind of wind that makes you turn away from it,... 

 iandsmith Says:  I once read a story of a mountain climber who set out to bag the highest peaks on the five continents. He chose Kosciuszko first but never made it. Foul weather ate up all his time and he had to return years later to complete the task. It’s just a reminder that not all days... 

 iandsmith Says:  We chose the easy route; first riding up the chairlift to Crackenback and then commencing the walk. It still left us 6.5kms to the summit, invisible over the horizon for the next few kms.I always used to have a bit of a spit about the national park entry fee but I whinge no...