Day 1: Head down to thredbo, catch the chair lift to the top of the mountain, ski over the back to the main range. Set up camp and then Ski to the summit of Australia's highest mountain - Mount Kosciuszko (2228m). The snow was patchy on the southern slopes and banked up meters high on the northern slopes. Also it had rained recently with a dust storm so there was an eerie red dusty tinge to the snow!
At the summit
In some spots the snow was a bit patchy..
But spring brings out the best in people.
Camping on grass
Ski on some grass - a new sport perhaps?
Lotsa snow and cornicesDay 2: Practise some turns, pack up campe, head to the highest pub in 'stralia for a german beer before skiing (or mainly falling) down the hill back to Thredbo village. Drive to the Eucumbene river.
Day 3: Paddle the Eucumbene (grade 3+/4) alpine creek. First descent for all of us - awesome river. We even tried to sacrifice an Irishman to the river, but he got out..
Day 4: Drive down to Victoria and paddle another steep creek - Middle creek. Only a little water here, so a bit of a rough bouldery paddle. Still some interesting rapids, and come back when the flow is higher.
Day 5: Paddle the mitta mitta gorge section, excellent water level, fun day out on this long grade 2/3 section.
Day 6: Paddle the Cobungra (twice). Great short steep creek, this time we ran everything including this nice waterfall below. My head is somewhere in the white. The video shows how it got there. It was so good we went back to do it again in 45 min - paddling alpine style.
Lost in water - CobungraCobungra - waterfall
Day 7: Travel over to Geehi - paddle the Tom Grogin easy section, of the murray, feed the tame kangaroos and debate plans for the next day (at length)
Day 8: Change plans that had been debated for 2hrs in 5 minutes. Paddle the upper murray gates 27km Indi section in the rain. This was an interesting paddle - with rapids called "The Thing" and aptly named "South African Swimmer". I was expecting a particular big day. It didn't dissapoint - with my most stressful day on a river yet. Watching a swim through a seive, a bad pin and someone getting stuck in a whirlpool from my position at the end of the group was not fun and hopefully not to be repeated. But everyone made it off the river in record time .. for a drink in Khancoban pub..
Murray Gates Team
Day 9: After the previous days excitement, opted for an easy paddle on the lower thredbo river, guiding some new paddlers down.
Day 10: Was going for a paddle - until we opted to help look for 2 gumbies who had decided to paddle a grade 4/5 river in a canadian kayak at 3pm the previous day and were now missing and subject of a police search. Luckily they walked out by mid morning after we had scoured the first 5km of the river looking for them.
Drive home back to Sydney to recover. 2300km of driving, 7 rivers paddled and 2 days of skiing..A good holiday I would say.
Day 8: Change plans that had been debated for 2hrs in 5 minutes. Paddle the upper murray gates 27km Indi section in the rain. This was an interesting paddle - with rapids called "The Thing" and aptly named "South African Swimmer". I was expecting a particular big day. It didn't dissapoint - with my most stressful day on a river yet. Watching a swim through a seive, a bad pin and someone getting stuck in a whirlpool from my position at the end of the group was not fun and hopefully not to be repeated. But everyone made it off the river in record time .. for a drink in Khancoban pub..
Murray Gates TeamDay 9: After the previous days excitement, opted for an easy paddle on the lower thredbo river, guiding some new paddlers down.
Day 10: Was going for a paddle - until we opted to help look for 2 gumbies who had decided to paddle a grade 4/5 river in a canadian kayak at 3pm the previous day and were now missing and subject of a police search. Luckily they walked out by mid morning after we had scoured the first 5km of the river looking for them.
Drive home back to Sydney to recover. 2300km of driving, 7 rivers paddled and 2 days of skiing..A good holiday I would say.
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