we had to say goodbye to bright, mostly because the caravan park could not accommodate us any longer.
strange because it seemed to us that on the same day half the park was pulling up stumps. anyway, with all the biking we’d done over the last few days we probably needed a break and the two day journey to thredbo was going to be nice with short drives, first to khancoban and then across the alps to thredbo.
the drive to khancoban led us through the kiewa valley and through tallangatta across a lot of creeks and floodplains and along a huge dam fed by the murray.
khancoban itself was founded as part of the construction of the snowy hydro scheme. the lake it is situated on is fed from huge pipes coming down the mountain and through the murray 2 power station. our neighbours in the caravan park who come here every year told us the water level can easily fluctuate by a meter or more during the day, depending on how much water is required to go through the power station.
it turned out they also were into watersports and had jet skis and a boat for waterskiing. it did not take long for nat to hitch a ride with the jet ski (the guys were really great and kindly offered it) …
… and before long she was on the waterskis, too. it’s like magic.
part fo the hydro scheme again. we’d seen the jindabyne / cooma side already, this was our first look at the victorian part of the hydro scheme. the building of this elaborate system of water pipes (partly above ground, partly through tunnels), dams, power stations and irrigation was truly a massive undertaking and really deserves to be called nation building. it is depressing to think that visionary projects like this do not appear to be on the agenda these days.
the drive from khancoban to thredbo is only 70km long but it takes a little while to cross the mountain range.
snowflake performed flawlessly and did not baulk at all at those steep climbs despite pulling our little house all the way. i think the gearbox oil cooler may be doing it’s job here. ben would be happy to hear that, i’m sure.