Category: Travel

We had planned to get up between 3 and 4 am, with an alarm set for 4am. With myself only having had 4 hour sleep two nights ago (due to taking Athena to a concert) I was still pretty tired and only woke up just before the alarm. I was still feeling rather groggy but managed to get up, showered and dressed. Only Christy was coming with us today. Athena had a school drama performance and didn’t want to miss two full weeks of school. So she will fly up on Wednesday night, in time for Christy’s birthday.

It ended up we left home at 4.45am, stopping first at McDonalds so Kevin could get a coffee (I had bought a tea from home). The weather was okay when we left, but the time the sun had come up and we were driving in Sydney, the rain had started. Funnily enough we had rain on our last drive up to Surfers in 2011.

As you can see Christy was able to get comfy and get some more sleep.

Having a mix of rain and sun, also meant got to see a rainbow. It was so vivid- but was behind us so hard to photograph.

We stopped for breakfast around 8am.

This place had been renovated since I was last here and I was SO impressed with the variety of fresh foods they had on offer.

I got a  veggie tortilla stack, which was delicious. I also picked up another tea for the road.

More driving.

And then a lunch stop at the Big Banana.

Kevin LOVES bananas so got the banana crepe – but as you can see it came with a ridiculous amount of cream and ice cream, most of which he left. But of course he had to get a frozen chocolate banana on he way out :-).

I went with the much healthier salad wrap, and Christy got pancakes.

A few more hours up the road there was another toilet stop.

And then we finally come to my most favourite part of the drive in far north NSW.

Firstly driving past the sugar cane fields.

There was a traditional stop at the Macademia Castle,

where we got the meet and pat a Golden….

Then my favourite view of the journey, which I think sadly will be missed when the new bypass road is finished.

It’s still stunning with all the clouds.

Once we get here it feels like the journey is almost at an end.

And, about an hour later, it is. I think this is the first time we have ever arrived in the dark.

I picked up our keys (we have a private rental) and we headed up to our apartment, once we got ourselves into the correct tower (there are three in the Chevron Renaissance).

The apartment is lovely and the view simply stunning.

The black space you can see is the ocean. You can just make out the waves on the beach.

I unpacked while Kevin sorted out the internet. Turns out I’ll be able to upload videos while we’re away so that’s a big bonus. We then headed downstairs, and are thrilled to discovered that this tower lift goes (almost) straight down to the shopping center below).

 

 

We found a Noodle Box close buy and g0t takeaway to eat back in the room. Christy and I ducked into Coles while Kevin waited, to pick up a  few essentials for the morning – namely tea, milk and biscuits :-).

We are all feeling pretty tired by now (which seems odd when we’ve been sitting down). But it’s been a long day. We enjoy our dinner while watching Air Crash Investigation.

If you’d like to see more of our day be sure to watch my vlog

Here’s the promised view from our room.

I was up before the sun (no surprise there) so I was able to watch as the sunlight made it’s way down the mountain.

 

We’ve really loved the apartment but it failed in bathroom lighting and bench space, so I had to set up a little makeup station in the bedroom.

Around about 9am we decided to head out in search of a proper breakfast (we’d already had a banana).

And look, we found some snow – off in the distance – at Charlotte’s Pass. Kevin had wanted to go a short walk but I wanted to visit the toilet first (little did we know there was one not far from here) and get some breakfast.

Even without the snow it’s a pretty area here (and in the Summer it is full of wild flowers).

It was pretty chilly for us though!!

Still in search of toilets we stopped at Perisher. But as you can see there was no-one around (except for workers getting ready for the start of the ski season).

We backtracked a bit to where we had a seen an open sign.

And ended up getting “brunch” here.

Not a bad view to take in while you eat.

I ordered a veggie burger, but ran into a problem, as it was bigger than my mouth!!! It was so delicious though – one of the best I’ve ever had. We started eating here but Kevin said his hand were too cold so we decided to hop into the car and eat in the warmth.

We made another stop at the water surge tower.

And took in the view over Lake Jindabyne.

We then drove into town and bought a few groceries (including tea for tonight) then headed back out to Thredbo. This is the shot I didn’t get yesterday where you can usually get your first sighting of snow on the top of the mountains.

 

 

I was just saying to Kevin that I didn’t think it was the area to see emu’s when just around the corner I spotted these guys.

I think I’ve only seen wild emu’s once – out in the middle of Australia.

I was lucky enough to be filming the emus as just up the road we saw a kanagroo – which ran across the road and just missed getting hit by an oncoming car.

We went back to our apartment for a while then got dressed into warmer clothing so we could take the chairlift up to the top of Thredbo.

Kevin was happy to find some snow to stomp in (he’s such a boy!!).

While I enjoyed the view back down into the valley.

We then headed into the cafe, which is Australia’s highest cafe/restaurant.

Now that’s a window with a view!!

I had been determined to enjoy a hot chocolate sometime this weekend so I took the opportunity to enjoy a gourmet hot choc here. It was REALLY good!! Kevin chose to have banana pancakes – one of his favs.

 

Kevin had wanted to go a short walk, as did I, but I got out of breath really quickly (due to my low iron levels) so we didn’t make it very far. Guess we’ll just have to come back when I’m feeling better. It was such a shame but at least I’ve better overall than on many days.

Time to head back down the chairlift.

Our apartment is pretty much in the middle of the following photo. If you look really hard you can probably make out my white car.

I wasn’t feeling the best after walking back up to the apartment so even though it wasn’t yet 3pm I got into my pjs and settled in for the afternoon. I did some reading, relaxing and even had a short nap (the low iron levels seem to make me extra sleepy as well).

Later we watched some TV  including a few episodes of Aircrash Investigation. Kevin was nice enough to organise dinner. I had one of the Jamie Oliver Cheesy Cauli Soups (never even knew they were available) and it was good – just not quite as good as the one I make myself :-).

 

 

This was enjoyed with a delicious ciabatta roll. Later there was some ice cream – after all, it is a birthday weekend :-).

Sorry, that I still haven’t done any posts for May – they are coming – but I wanted to share our weekend away to the Snowy Mountains. This was a birthday trip (my birthday is next week) for just Kevin and myself. With me being so unwell this year and Kevin a bit stressed with work, we thought it best just to have some time together without the kids.

On Friday morning Kevin dropped the girls at school, came back home to help me finish off the packing and we set off about 9.15am.

It’s a long drive to Thredbo (about 5 hours all up) but one I really enjoy.

We stopped to have lunch at Bredbo Pancake & Crepes.

We had eaten here once before – about 10 years ago, and this time we were lucky enough to get a table by the window.

I got an asparagus crepe. Both it and the salad were very yummy, very fresh. But I only managed to get through half of it. Kevin and I had debated sharing a meal, and that’s what we should have done.

Feeling a bit too full, we were back on the road. I really love this area with all the rocks scattered about.

For my non- Australian readers, we saw plenty of these signs, but no “live” kanagaroos.

Finally we spotted Lake Jindabyne.

We stopped by the dam for Kevin to fly his drone and get some video.

We then had a brief stop in Jindabyne, where we visited the tourist center and had a quick look around the shops (but didn’t buy anything). Then it was the final drive to Thredbo. For some bizarre reason (probably due to vlogging) I didn’t get any photos through here but it was so weird NOT seeing any snow at the top of the mountains.

Finally around 4pm we arrived at the Snowgoose Apartments and got checked in, where we were made very welcome.

I had booked a one bedroom apartment for a great rate at lastmintute.com.au just a few weeks ago. And we were thrilled with our room.

While I got “slightly” unpacked, Kevin got to work fixing the vizor for the drone.

Tomorrow I’ll share the view from our room so you’ll have to believe me when I tell you there was NO SNOW – except for a small patch at the VERY top of the mountain. Kevin decided to fly the drone again but unfortunately there was a bit of an emergency when it crashed out of our slight. So there was a mad dash from the apartment and down into the village to try and find it.

See if you can find it in this photo…

I’ll give you hint – it’s in the tree!! Lucky really as there is a river and a pool closeby!! Kevin went back to our apartment to find some help and one of the locals went to get his ladder, which Kevin climbed up to retrieve the “drone of shame”.

It got pretty cold and dark, as we waited for rescue, especially as we had rushed out without gloves and beanies. But at least we didn’t have to worry about this…

We found somewhere to order a takeaway pizza (they already knew about the drone in the tree) but since they weren’t yet open Kevin had to go back and pick up half an hour later.

I just wanted to get back to our room and get warmed up.

We got a Tuscan Veggie pizza and it was rather yummy. I loved the base but missed my normal toppings (with pineapple). Still it was very nice for a change.

The rest of the evening was spent watching Time Team and then some of the Giro d’Italia (because excitingly enough we have the Eurosport channel here). At least now I won’t have 4 days of racing to watch when I get home. I kept falling asleep but managed to watch the end before crawling into bed at 10.30pm. My low iron levels seem to make me very tired.