Alpine Australia

Beth on the trail to Craig's Hut

We are now in southern Australia, having flown from Cairns to Melbourne on Saturday, November 20th.  Since we’re in the southern hemisphere, flying south here is like flying north back home – it’s much cooler here in the south, and the daylight is longer.  We are currently staying in a timeshare just north of Melbourne, having traded our timeshare back in the U.S. for this week, knowing we would probably need a break from all the camping. The resort is in the alpine region, where the ski resorts are.  Yep, that’s right, Australia has ski resorts!  There are six of them in this area.  There are no pine trees here; instead they ski amongst the snow gum trees.  Right now there isn’t a trace of snow – we were told that the season ended six weeks ago (I have a feeling their winter is very short).  There are lots of mountains here - they remind me more of the Smoky Mountains than the Rocky Mountains.  This is Snowy River country, for those of you that might remember the movie “The Man from Snowy River.”  It was filmed in this area in the 1980s and used many of the town’s inhabitants as extras.  The film itself is based on a poem written in 1890 by Australian bush poet, Banjo Patterson.  I happened to watch the movie last winter so it is fresh in my mind (love that movie!).  The hut that Jim Craig, the main character, lived in is in a picturesque part of the mountains here – as soon as I saw a photo of it I knew we had to go there!  This area has been in a severe drought until this year when they received loads of rain, which happened to wash out the road going to Craig’s Hut.  No worries, we weren’t going to let a silly road washout stop us!  We talked to a few different people from the area who helped us figure out the best route to hike there. 

Daron on top of Mt Stirling

On the day of the hike we got an early start and headed up to the top of Mt. Stirling, near the ski resort of Mt. Buller (which we had hiked the day before).  The views were fabulous, as all views from mountaintops are!  From Mt. Stirling we continued on an arduous up and down road until we reached Craig’s Hut.  The nice thing about the road being washed out is there were very few visitors at the hut.  It did not disappoint –the hut and the view were both very scenic and as a bonus we had it all to ourselves!  We took pictures and had lunch on the porch, enjoying the fabulous views.  No wild brumbies in sight (that’s Aussie for horses, for those of you who remember the movie J)!  The hut was destroyed by a bushfire in 2006 and was rebuilt in 2008.  Original or not, it’s still very picturesque, and is exactly how I picture my fantasy cabin in the woods where I will live when I want to get away from it all. 

Craig's Hut

On another note, kangaroos are ALL over the place where our timeshare is. We can’t walk around the grounds without seeing loads of them.  We watched them almost every evening:  eating, hopping around, and even boxing with each other.  I never get tired of watching them.  They also have lyrebirds in this area, which we really wanted to see but I guess they were hiding from us!  The lyrebird image is on the Australian dime, as well as the $100 bill.  The male lyrebird has these really long tail feathers that it drapes over itself to attract female lyrebirds.  It also mimics natural and unnatural sounds – like car alarms, chainsaws, cameras, etc.  I watched this amazing video on the internet and could hardly believe that a bird could make those sounds.  If you’re interested, you can watch it here:  http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VjE0Kdfos4Y

Beth with her kangaroo friends

This was a mostly uneventful week – we took it easy and enjoyed having a kitchen and free laundry facilities, as well as a TV and movie channels.  I indulged my craving for pancakes (yum!) and Daron cooked us lots of tasty meals.  We booked our flight to our next destination, New Zealand, leaving on Dec 8th from Melbourne.  This week was a nice little respite during our time here in Oz.