While the mornings have been fresh in the van, in bed under the covers has been toasty. Once the sun has been up for an hour or two it’s lovely in the sun. We think about staying another night, but there seems to be a nice campground 35km up the road called Three Mile Dam, near Mt Selwyn, so we decide to move on.
While we climb today up to around 1400mts, it is pretty gentle, and when we turn off the Snowy Mountain highway onto the road into Mt Selwyn, we’re surprised to see (very) small pockets of snow still on some parts of the ground. There are two campgrounds, the nicer one to the west is closed till the Oct long weekend (in 2 days’ time), while unclear it seems the eastern one is open and we drive in. This site seems a little more haphazard in layout, and we eventually find a gate across the road and we can’t go any further, fortunately right here, on the edge of the lake I can reverse the van into a camping site and off the road. It’s not a bad spot at all for the night. We are a little close to another group, but as we’re just around a bend we both have our privacy. Most of the “camping” sites are up in the bush, without a clear view of the lake, so I think we got lucky
Top spot 
Little fella likes his reflection
It is so peaceful here, I think so far there are maybe 2 other groups, it’s early so more may arrive this afternoon.
At the gate, the road continues on over the Dam wall, it is only a small dam, a few 100mts in diameter. I guess it might be for the resorts water supply, it is certainly clean enough. At the gate there is a sign saying “Panoramic view 3km return”, why not. It is an easy walk, and along the way we find what must be the first wombat hole we’ve seen on the trip, but of course no wombat. The lookout itself is a bit of an anticlimax, but it was a nice walk nevertheless.
Not the best view! 
Wombat Hole 
You can just see the van in the background 
Dam Wall
The van batteries are a little low, and as we are under some trees the solar panels are not really doing their job. I talk to the young lads in the next camp and ask if they’d mind if I ran the generator for 20 or 30mins to top up the batteries “no problem at all” so I get it out and run it for a short while. It’s not that noisy, but it just constant. I don’t understand the battery system quite as well as I think I should. Given we have a compressor fridge, I know we use a lot more power than those with a threeway fridge (there are other benefits to the compressor model). I need to sit down at some stage with an amp meter and really measure the input and outputs, but that’s for another day, today I just know we are low on battery power.
We take a trip over to the (drop) dunnys, which are about 400m or so away. While we walk, we come across a patch of the unmelted snow, or is it just ice now? Surprisingly it is still kinda fluffy, maybe the texture of a slushie. Only a very brown and dirty slushy. No Caitlin, you can’t eat the snow!
Don’t eat yellow snow 
We relax in the afternoon. As the day goes on, a few campers, mostly with camper trailers come down the road, only to reach the same dead end we did this morning. While we’ve left them plenty of room a few of them make a real hash of reversing in to the area to do a U-turn. One looks at us and says “how are you planning on getting that out” pointing at our rig. Yup, the same thought has crossed my mind, but that’s a problem for another day. Finally, a little earlier than normal we get the fire going. As it gets dark, we can see 4 or 5 fires dotted over the hills.
