By Sam Eyers
From mountain biking to tobogganing, from bushwalking to swimming in the snowy river, the variety and sheer brilliance of the activities offered at the snowy mountains is just stunning. In the summer school holidays, I travelled to Jindabyne, a town 30 minutes’ drive away from Thredbo village. I had never been to the mountains before, and I absolutely loved the variety of activities you could participate in. I have never seen snow, but I find it hard to see how it would compare to this. In the middle of the sweltering heat of the Sydney Summer, the refreshing wind and temperature of the not so snowy mountains was a welcome change.
You can buy a one-day walking lift pass for around $60 and a one-day mountain biking lift pass for around $100; allowing you to travel up the mountain as much as you want. There are many different chairlifts around the park but the main one, the Kosciuszko Chairlift, takes you from Thredbo village at 1350m elevation to the start of the Kosciuszko walk which is at 1950m high. From then it is a challenging yet spectacular 2.5 hour, 6.5km, one-way walk to the summit of Kosciusko at 2350m, the highest point in all of Australia. The walk is very achievable as it’s on a metal-grated raised-platform for most of the way. The feeling when you reach the summit is simply phenomenal.
Kosciuszko in the summer is an amazing experience and a different and exciting holiday that juxtaposes Sydney and allows you to escape the hustle and bustle of the city.