Day 1 – Home to Adaminaby

Up at 7, but I’ve been awake off and on since 5.

Final food and gear packed, so it’s not till 9 that we pull away.  As we’re heading south we do a first!  The M8 heading south was recently extended and there is now an entrance near The Cresent at the far end of Annandale.  So in about 2km, we leave the suburb, hit the Motorway and are on our way.  Much easier than fighting our way through Marrickville and St Peters.

On the Hume and a lot of traffic heading south, and it just seems to get worse the further we go.

Exit the Hume to head to Canberra, just south of Golburn and then as 300km is up it’s time to fill the tanks.

We argue about lunch options and finally settle on a Bakery at Bredbo, the place has quite a good reputation.  While the pies where OK, they where a bit dry, maybe they might have been better earlier in the day.  Maybe a bit like Sheffield in NZ, the reputation is better than the pie!

Finally, we hit Cooma just before 2 and arrive at the Ski hire place.  They are pretty smashed, as it seems like us quite a few people are trying to hit the slopes before the school holidays end.

The guys are really good and a little over half an hour later the kids are all kitted out.

An hour to go to get to the campground.  We needed to get a few groceries, and thought about going to Coles in Cooma, but parking with the van wouldn’t have been that easy, so we elect to stop quickly at the general store in Adaminaby,  I drop Justine off to do the shopping while I try and find a place to park the van.  As it happens the only place is just in front of the Big Trout.  I can only convince Liam for a photo op.

20mins to go.  As we start to climb, we start to see pockets of snow in the hills and by the side of the road.  Shortly we enter the campground (well I missed the turn off the first time and needed to drive an extra 500mt or so up till the next Snow Chain Bay to turn around). Here too, there are snow patches by the side of the road, so we’re all pretty excited.

We arrive at the campground. It’s all unallocated spaces, but It’s meant to take 30 bookings. When I booked only 11 were still free, but as we turn up we can only see about 5 vans here.   I’ve seen from photos there is this concrete pad at the far end, while I wasn’t hopeful, we drive in and see it’s free.  We look around, but this has to be the best option?  No muddy, soggy ground outside the van here.

It’s nearly 4pm and it about 7° so rather fresh.  We unhitch and move some stuff between the car and van to be ready as we can for tomorrow.  While Justine thinks I’m nuts, I get the firepit and some wood out for a small fire.

Deisel heater on, and it takes ages to start, I was more than bit worried it wouldn’t.  I’ve been pushing the friendship with Justine and Kids going to a campground rather than a caravan park, no heater would be a deal breaker.  

Dinner off the Barby and while bloody cold, I can stay by the fire most of the time and keep a little warm.

The heater does stop, in trying to fix it yesterday, I pressed just about every button combination on the control panel, and I’ve somehow changed it from the normal “flow rate” we have it on, and it’s now on thermostat.  You’d think this would be better, but it seems to run flat out till it gets to temperature then has a think about what it wants to do next.  On flow rate, it just sets the fuel flow and that determines the heat. Trouble is I can’t figure out the key combination to set it back.   We start it again and it seems to work again.

Movie and finally time for bed.  It’s been a long day, and while we need to get up reasonably early, at least it’s not sparrows like it was last time.