It’s been a long day of driving, but some brilliant adventures. We’re currently enjoying a pub dinner in the centre of Tumut as we write in our diaries – and turns out it’s Trivia night at the pub, so we’re doing that as well! Tumut is the traditional lands of the Wiradjuri, Wolgalu and Ngunnawal Aboriginal peoples, and we are so grateful for their care of this land for thousands of years, and recognise their continuing connection to this area.
We headed off from Cooma at about 8am this morning, and continued south deeper into the Snowy Mountains. We stopped off in Jindabyne for our first Big Thing – the Big Chairlift! This was apparently a sculpture from a competition last year, and it won people’s choice, so they decided to keep it. It was a fun stop, and a great addition to our list of Big Things that we’ve seen around Australia.
Another 30 minutes down the road gets you to Thredbo, which was our first proper stop and something that we’d really been looking forward to – the Alpine Coaster! It felt a bit ridiculous to be driving all the way into Thredbo for just this, but it was too good an opportunity to miss while we were down this way. The Alpine Coaster is a new addition at Thredbo, and is right in the heart of the Village at Thredbo. We had pre-booked just one ride each – in hindsight, we really wish we’d booked three! (That said, it definitely isn’t cheap.) It was an amazing experience! It honestly felt like riding your own personal roller coaster. Each of us had our own car that we took up part of the mountain, and then weaved our way down – trying desperately to resist the urge to apply the brakes and just keep going flat out.
The next stop for the day was about 90 minutes on at Adaminaby – another Big Thing! The Big Trout was our lunch stop, right beside the highway. Adaminaby is a small town, which was created when most of the town was relocated from beside what become Lake Eucumbene, as part of the Snowy Scheme. They relocated it about 7km away, on the other side of the Great Dividing Range.
After lunch, we decided to take a drive down to Old Adaminaby, which is now a small town of its own. When Lake Eucumbene is at a lower level (which it currently is) you can see some footings from the buildings of the old town. The original Methodist church and the school house are the only two buildings still remaining – because they were up above what become the high water level of the lake. The Methodist church is now a community centre, and the school hall is the caravan park’s main office.
We headed further along the Snowy Mountains Hwy, aiming for the Yarrangobilly Caves Thermal Pool. But we got distracted along the way by Kiandra – now a heritage precinct, with remains of an old town and plenty of information. It is considered the birthplace of skiing in Australia, and was the home to a very short-lived gold rush in 1860. NPWS slowly started to restore some of the remaining buildings in Kiandra during the 2010s, however they were severely damaged or destroyed in the 2020 bushfires. They’ve since rebuilt a couple of the buildings. It was wonderful to read about this little town and imagine the life that was here in the late 1800s and early 1900s. It would’ve been incredibly cold though – apparently once winter hits, Kiandra is almost always covered in snow and has high winds.
We then eventually made it to the Yarrangobilly Caves Thermal Pools – a 20m long pool fed by a natural spring. It’s well and truly off the Snowy Mountains Hwy – about 15 minutes along a narrow dirt road (thankfully, it’s a big one way loop). And once you park, it’s then only a 700m walk down to the pool – except that’s a very steep 700m walk down. But it was definitely worth it. The pool and location are just stunning. It’s one of those places you probably wish you could’ve spent more time at. The water is apparently a consistent 27º – perhaps it just wasn’t cold enough outside, but it definitely didn’t feel 27º! By the time we arrived and were changed it was after 3pm, so we didn’t have a huge amount of time. But it was enough to have a lazy, relaxing swim. And the kids absolutely loved it. I mentioned that it was a very steep walk down – which of course meant that it was a very, very steep walk back up!
The Snowy Mountains Hwy is just a beautiful piece of road. I know we’ve only driven on a part of it today, but there really hasn’t been a bad view the whole time. I’ve been grateful there hasn’t been much traffic on the road as well, which has made it a lot more enjoyable.
It’s a short stay here in Tumut – so we’re just in a simple motel. We all really enjoyed the evening up at the local pub – despite Tumut being a reasonably big town, it definitely had the vibes of a small town pub. Tomorrow we start to head out of the Snowies and into the Riverina!
