Sydney to Canberra - from surf to snow!

Thomas had a last day play with Finn at the beach in Sydney

 

That was Saturday and by the next Thursday, he was playing in snow!

 

 

Since Tom's trip to europe in 2011, he has been obsessed with mountains and their prospect for snow.  When we went to the Blue Mountains with the Kettley/de Mars family, he kept asking about whether it snowed there and whether he might see any.  Alas although cold, no snow.  When we were driving to Canberra he was thrilled with the mountains we saw in the distance, asking all impossible questions that I was unable to answer except to say, "Look at the map".  I didn't know what they were called. When we arrived in Canberra, I knew they were the Brindabellas and the first question he asked Pat and Colin, our Canberra hosts was - does it snow here?

From then on, he constantly was consulting the maps, the internet, the weather etc and begged me to take him to the Snowy Mountains.  I resisted but finally relented and agreed to drive to Thredbo to stay overnight at a campspot about 8 km from the resort.  I kept saying that although the forecast was -3 it would not guarantee snow.  I have never been so cold in all my life.  My sleeping bag is rated to -10 and it was certainly colder than -3!  Upon arrival, there was no snow.  But soon after, hail appeared and rained down on us for about 20 minutes which worried me as I had no idea of how I was going to drive on icy roads - no chains, no experience of driving with chains etc.  He was disappointed that although it hailed there was no snow.  I told him it might snow overnight given how cold it was and YES! in the morning, there was snow on the peaks.

At first Tom was too reluctant to use the chair lift to go to the summit to see Kosciuskzo but finally after trying to walk up, agreed to do the chair lift.  We hired some snow boots and he was wearing various layers of clothes including a thermal top of mine under his shaggy jacket.  As you can see he was in seventh heaven.

We had a 24 hour pass for the Snowy Mountain National Park and so we departed by midday on Thursday.  Coming down the chair lift, it was still incredibly cold and there appeared to be more snow coming.

Canberra for me, was more than the trip to the snow.  It was the opportunity to catch up with friends of long ago and see some of the national monuments.

There were  no parliamentary sessions and I couldn't interest Tom in going to see the building, he wanted to see the Prime Minister in full flight but she was not available.

At the war memorial, the displays were fascinating. We found the Victoria Cross of Throssell from WW1 who was married to Catherine Susannah Pritchard whose house is now a writers retreat and is next door to Tom's cousins in Greenmount.  We experienced sound and light shows of the RAF in both world wars that were extremely well done, feeling like you were actually part of the battles the way in which they were executed.

Tom's picture above was with Weary Dunlop, a larger than life figure not just in bronze.

We finished off the week with a trip to Questacon and to the Australian Institute of Sport before Tom flew home last Friday.

I then took off for the coast at Batemans Bay and wound my way down the south coast of NSW which is so beautiful I feel I have been shortchanged by WA with its dry landscape.  I am presently in Victoria at a little town called Foster and my next blog will emanate from here.