I had a pretty awful night's sleep. The mattress felt thinner than the sheet over the bed boards. From 7:30 there's a free breakfast which most people take outside (our window). By the time we're eating at 8:45, breakfast is still cereal and bread and jam though I thought I saw some eggs as I first walked in. Not bad, thought the number of stupid oafs lumbering around the kitchen in a too-early-to-function manner became quite irritating. Together with the group share mentality -- a petal's fallen in the jam. Never mind, someone who cares will get it out.
I was, um, impressed by the person who walked barefoot into the toilets and out again. I know this because of the trail of black footprints in and out. How do people do that? Not the dirty feet so much, everyone has emergency calls, but they were so dirty they were still making perfect impressions a dozen sodden steps later. I felt obliged to change my T-shirt last night and this morning you can smell why. Woof! We'll definately get a stinky backpacker award.
We took a look at the beach at the top of the road. We have a habit of ignoring the town where we stay. Well, plenty of people marching determindly into the strong breeze under the grey threatening sky. Quite a change from yesterday when it was blisteringly hot. It wasn't cold, probably mid-twenties but the wind brought it down a bit. We head off down tourist drive #11 which, via drives #9 and #8 gets you back up the Sapphire Coast to Naroomba which we thought deserved another look.
Our Australia trip has been somewhat bereft of things to see and do and this road was no exception. It winds its way back north rarely touching the coast with nothing much to interest the tourist. I think NZ is blessed with a remarkable country by comparison with something worth stopping for every half-hour. You have to aviod more than you see to make progress. Australia seems to be absent of features other than the land itself which does things (plain, rolling countryside, forests, etc.) on a grand scale. I think our expectations are wrong.
At Narooma the weather is still blowy, rainy and overcasty so we settle for some fish and chips before heading off again. The chill wind didn't make the prospect of wading in the sea very appealing.
We haven't booked any accomodation but head for Thredbo in the Snowy Mountans seeking a change from the oppresive heat we've had to date. We fail to get into the YHA and fearing a swingeing AU$300+ charge jump at a motel/lodge room for AU$90. We're doing this using our Telstra mobile SIM which we bought this morning for AU$25 (AU$25 of calls included). Only after activating it do we discover the call charges are 77c per minute, nearly double what the bloke in the shop said which [in turn] was two or three times the competitors' rate. This economic foolishness is because Telstra has greater land coverage which will be more handy in the future, we only need it to belatedly book rooms.
The Snowy Mountains Highway then the Alpine Highway take us into windier cooler and greener looking pastures and forests with a decided absence of snow. We were listening to ABC radio amongst others and I forced Helen to listen to both Alistair Cooke's Letter from America (about a man who has taken a fortune teller to court in New York for failing to give him psychic powers in return for US$8000 -- there is a little known by-law which states that fortune telling etc. is OK so long as it's an act for entertainment -- the police had to satisfy themsleves that this bloke was no more psychic than before he'd handed over his US$8000 a year before and the fortune teller was arrested for Grand Larceny, marvellous stuff) and "All in the Mind" a terribly worthy periodical which today was chasing down the slippery subject of consciousness. They had eminent people on, including the somewhat scathing Daniel Dennett who wasn't suffering anyone gladly, after [a particularly scathing comment by Dennett] the presenting woman said ... of which he clearly thinks is a load of bollocks.
Well, not that high-brow a show.
Thredbo is a regular ski resort: alpine lodges unecessarily piled on top of one another with various drinkeries and eateries of varying standard in the centre. Having been stung for the AU$15 mountain park entry fee our budget is diminished (for the other parks to date the booths have been unmanned or we accidentally missed the ticket machines). We have a nice little en-suite with breakfast included though car parking is on the other side of town. The town seems both quiet (there's room for a lot more cars) and busy as there are a surprising number of people around for what is Thredbo's off-season.
Helen's not very impressed with the skifields -- you can't see much of them -- which makes me think they're quite good with lots of trails through trees. Over dinner, Helen, quite rightly, accused me of having yellow teeth. It's passive smoking of course, next I'll have lung cancer. I prefer yellow fangs as it would engender more character, I think.
Alpinehorn Lodge, Thredbo S36.50643 E148.30388 Elev. 1408m
Copyright 2003 Ian Fitchet. All rights reserved.