The (Foggy) Snowy Mountains

       

We agonized over our plans for our first full day in Thredbo. It had poured with rain throughout our first night. We contemplated a guided walk to the top of Kossie (Mount Kosciuszko—too difficult to spell more than once), the highest point on the continent. We abandoned the idea of a guided walk when we discovered that the trail to the mountain was almost a boardwalk—actually a metal grid walk for most of the way, so we didn’t need a guided tour to stop us getting lost in the fog in the alpine meadows, nor did we want to stand around in the rain while the guide explained the flora to a group of people which would inevitably include at least one idiot asking stupid questions.

         But in the early morning the clouds were pitch black, the fog swirled around the ski-lift that takes you up to the beginning of the 6.5 km trail, and we dithered as to what we should do as we stood at the counter where the lift tickets were sold. Two elderly ladies bought tickets. A family bought tickets. A line was forming to buy tickets. So we bought tickets and took the lift. 

The die was cast, and although we returned soaked to the skin, we never for a moment regretted it.

         It was foggy, and the views were limited, sometimes down to a hundred yards or so, and we rarely had a vista of the mountains around us. But the wild flowers in the alpine meadows were very striking, and occasionally wild and rocky peaks loomed through the mist.

         We reached the top of Kossie in about an hour and three quarters;

Other brave souls wandered up through the fog, got out their digital cameras, and took grey and ghostly photos of each other at the top of the continent—2,228 metres: not very high, after all, but clearly for the Aussies it represented something of a pilgrimage. 

At this point we had never had more than the lightest drizzle of rain—nothing of any consequence. But, within two hundred metres of leaving the summit, the rains came in abundance and continued for most of the 6.5 km return walk to the top of the ski-lift. We were reasonably prepared for rain—but not for this deluge—and by the time we waited for the rain to ease before going down in the ski-lift we were both dripping right through to our underwear.

         Time to regroup in our motel room, with wet clothes draped over every hanger and every available hook and rail in the bathroom.

         Later in the afternoon, with the rain stopping and even an occasional flash of sun, we wandered around some of the walking trails in the village, which was full of young people at a triathlon training session running races in strange costumes, or virtually no costumes at all.

         Let’s be honest—sunshine would have been better than rain; but in the circumstances, we rescued what might have been a totally wasted day.