Not nearly as much wind overnight as we feared, and the diesel heater did it’s thing all night so in the end not a bad night’s sleep.
We hear a lot of rain, it’s got to be too heavy for it to be snow, and it too comfortable in bed to get up and check.
Around 6 I pump up the heater a bit and open one of the blinds just a little. Yep, we’ve had a lot of rain, and no snow that I can tell.
Finally, it’s time to get out of bed. While I could go in the van, I walk over to the toilet. The Swag guys are still here, they have a fire going under their oversized gazebo (that they seem to have trouble stopping from being blown away. The Bayswater guys are packing up and leaving. boy it must have been miserable for them overnight.
It trying so hard to snow, but all we seem to be getting is sleet.
It’s nice and snug in the van and as we breakfast the sleet is starting to move more towards snow ever so slowly.
Finally, it starts snow proper, still a little on the wet side, but we can take that.
Over the next hour we see the field in front slowly get covered in an ever increase layer of white. So slow that you don’t really notice it happening.
The snow starts to get heavier and heavier and eventually Liam and I put on the wet weather gear and take a trip outside. It’s certainly what I’d call wet snow, but it’s still such an amazing experience, maybe we don’t need to take a drive.
After a bit Justine and eventually Caitlin join us.
Over the next hour we walk around, take photos, throw the odd snow ball and I’m really enjoy myself here.
In the distance we see a few Kangaroos grazing in the snow, so that ticks one of Justine’s requests off.
Lunch, and we put some home-made pasties in the oven, remember the oven it’s not for space heating!
It’s nearly 2 when we’re all done. I suggest going for a drive. The kids seem to have had enough “snow play” for today, but who knows we might find something interesting. There are few places on the way north to Selwyn the kids have looked on the way up the last couple of days.
As we drive out, I realise we don’t have heaps of fuel. If we did 40-50ks today, then it would be a bit touch and go if we’d make it back to Adaminaby tomorrow with the van. So while a pain, we start heading south. I’m a bit annoyed with myself that I didn’t see this last night when we came in for dinner.
A few k’s south of us is one of the larger chain fitting bays and the Roads and Traffic people are setup making motorist put chains on, this is the first time we’ve seen this. As we’re in a 4×4 we won’t need to fit them. 20odd K’s later we pull into Adaminaby and fill up. They also hire snow gear here at the servo, and seem to be doing a roaring trade on chain hire today!.
Back past the chain bay, and we can drive right by. Past the turn off to the campground and after a 45ks round trip we’re finally heading north again. All the way there and back it has been alternating between fine, rain, sleet and snow.
As we start to climb there is more and more snow on the side of the roads, and up in the mountains. The speed limit is posted at 40, which is a bit slow, but I figure those driving on chains will probably struggle to get to this and it’s not too long before we hit traffic.
I’ve got to say the scenery here today is just sensational and it gets better the further we go.
As we drive, we come up to this bend, rather sharp, but not really that bad, we can see a ute is at an odd angle and as we get closer, we can see it’s driven off the road. A few cars in front just keep driving, but we slow down and ask if they need help. Apparently, they are fine and a tow truck is on it’s way, better to leave it to the professionals so we keep driving.
A few k’s more up near the ruins at Kiandra, there is a large ute, I think a RAM or similar that seems stuck in the snow drift on the side of the road. There is an official vehicle connecting up to pull them out. I know the road looks bad, but I didn’t think this bad.
Soon we take the Link road to Selwyn, I had thought about driving the track down to three mile dam, as we’ve got more time now, but seeing all the trouble others are in, I’m less inclined. We do pull over for a moment to take a better photo of the entrance road down to the dam. Hardly any sign of tyre tracks this time.
Not driving down there today…..
We take the turn off to Selwyn resort and find ourselves following a snow plow/grader. I pull a little over to the left to allow room for an oncoming car, I’m sure I’m still on the main bit of road, but the passenger side tyre just feels like it’s off the road, like in a large rut, and it takes me close to 100mts to get back on the road. I had visions of being flicked off into the bush…..
Up at Selwyn and the snow is so much deeper near the car park, the plough has push that much up that it must be near impossible to walk from the centre to the carpark now.
We find a place to turn around and start to leave.
Not long and we catch up with a couple of 2 wheel drive cars with chains that are lucky to be doing 20km/h they seem to know enough to have their hazards on, but not enough to think about pulling over in one of the available places…..
After nearly 2hrs we’re back at the van, it would have been nicer without needing the side trip into Adaminaby, but I glad we did the drive north. So much different to the first 2 days.
The guys in the swags have called it quits, Justine spoke to them earlier and I think it is the wind more than anything. While a party of two vans has turned up, another van also leaves. So it’s hardly been crowded here.
Pizzas for dinner, but in the oven, not off the BBQ. It’s just too cold.
The weather starts to close in again, and it ends up being a rather wet night.