Conquering Kosciuszko - on top of Australia

Having reached the 4 compass points, the centre and the lowest point in Australia, Dunc was keen to tick off the highest point too. Mt Kosciuszko was a reasonable drive from Canberra and easily accomplished in a day trip, so off we went.

Visiting a ski field in summer is always slightly weird, but this place was a mecca for mountain bikers and hikers and very well set up. We thought we were prepared with warm gear, but I was somewhat freaked to see the temperature listed as “feels like -4°” at the bottom of the chairlift.

  

We caught the main chairlift to the top, where it was a 4km return hike to the summit lookout and 13km return to the summit itself. The children were NOT up for the full distance, so we agreed that Dunc would steam ahead to the summit while the three of us would hike at kid-pace to the lookout before returning to pass some time in the alpine Eagles Nest restaurant while we waited for the hiker to return.

After an adorable goodbye to Dunc, we headed off at our slower pace and were super impressed with the way they had built the track. It was a wonderful grilled pathway with clear signage of distances as we went along. It was rather slushy at times and we could see snow in the distance, so the pathway was definitely required.

I had done the usual brown-bag picnic lunch, so we made ourselves comfortable in an almost-cave at the lookout and ate our meal before turning around and heading back again. We had rather a quick-step rush back at the end as some of us needed to go to the toilet and it was a crowded path with nowhere we could squat in private! Eek...

Sitting in comfort in the bar, with a yummy hot chocolate, I had a lovely time watching the mountain bikers get off the chairlift and zoom down the mountain. It didn’t take long to get to know the good ones – they were back up again in about 20 minutes! There was even one guy without a chain – guess you don’t need one if its downhill all the way?

Dunc made it all the way to the summit and sent some pics of his achievement. Then he sent pics looking the other way and the crowd was surprisingly huge! Just getting to the top of Australia wasn’t enough for him – he had to get on top of the cairn too. What an accomplishment!