Fantastic morning with bright sunshine and warm weather and it set the tone for the rest of the day. We had a visit from the ranger at 8:20 checking our pass was valid. Our 24HR pass ran till 9:48AM but he was happy if we were leaving the park that we did not need another $16 day pass. As it turned out it was a long drive out the other side of the park and we did not leave for several hours later, we even passed the same ranger stopped at one of the last campsites on the way out. During winter the day pass is $27 a car per day plus a winter surcharge. This place is guaranteed to suck your wallet dry in the peak snow season.

Highest point on the road on that side

We had no plan and we just drove and admired the scenery along the way. Stopped at one lookout on the highest point on the way out, nice but not spectacular. Much further along the road we came to the Scammell Spur Lookout after a very very windy and slow road. The road is marked not suitable for caravans and large vehicles but as you always find on the road people won’t let that stop them. At Scammells there was a large caravan parked almost blocking the whole entrance, “no signs gonna alter my holiday”!

Scammell lookout

Very nice views here but Kosciuszko was blocked by another peak in front of it from this angle. Down the road a while longer and many sharp corners, ups and downs there was a sign for a power station visitors centre for Murray 1 power station. Worth a drive in for a look. Visitors centre was awash with small kids in a school group and nobody on the counter. We thought we would have a coffee and wait for the kids to leave. We could have helped ourselves for ages till some lady delivering lunch for the group turned up and she made us coffee’s. The other lady appeared eventually to much surprise.

Oh how times have changed

Hand made spanner

The black line s the road we travelled on the model, Lake Jindabyne in the background

The centre was great and had heaps of information on the Snowy Scheme construction, models and history. Quite a long movie in the theater and heaps of displays and panels on the walls. Somewhat made up for the other one that was closed in Cooma at 2PM. It was really interesting how they brought out the migrants from 30 different countries to build the thing. The scale of the project was just massive and I can not imagine the work that went into the logistics and planning alone. Plenty of trouble from the alpine snow in winter during the project including the 1964 snow falls that was the highest on record at the time.

1928 amonia fridge using the same principal as our camper fridge.

Hand made ski’s and bindings – a pram on ski’s

Printing press

I want to try me some of this!

Corryong was our next stop for a late lunch and a look through the Man from Snowy River Museum. Google Jack Riley for the story. Now this museum was very interesting but it was playing a bit on the Riley name and legend. While it had an area about him and some of his stuff the majority of the museum was a hotch potch of old ‘stuff’, some of it very interesting but it was just these huge collections in different rooms and sheds out the back with everything from old printing presses, 8mm movie and camera stuff, a jeep, police station , bank and a shed full of old carts and other items of similar nature. We found some of it very interesting though.

We stopped at an old historic trestle bridge on the old Wodonga to Cudgewa line and did a geoacache while we were here. This is now a rail trail but bypasses this old bridge that was built in 1915 and unlike all the other bridges on the line it was not replaced with more modern technology. The bridge was capable of train loads of 500 tons, not bad for a few local trees bolted together. Later after taking a 40km odd unintended detour today we ended up at a roadside stop called Pig Point Reserve with a few others scattered around the area right next to the Mita Mita river. Tomorrow we have no plans except to check out part of the 3 peaks race course I am doing early next year and we will make the rest up as we go along.

Cider o’clock…..