Thredbo 2020, Days 1 & 2: A lazy start

We’ve had the laziest start ever to our annual Thredbo holiday because of the weather! It rained! And quite a bit. You know, that wet stuff that falls from the sky?

Backtracking though, we got off promptly and did our usual trip down, stopping at Cooma’s The Lott for our morning cuppa and wildbrumby for lunch. The trip was uneventful. The Monaro had just a tinge of green after some recent rain, not quite the crackling dry, pale yellow we saw when we drove through it just before Christmas. We are enjoying our new, 4-months-old hybrid RAV4, including its Driver Assist function, automatic windscreen wipers, and connection to our phones, through which we are listening to our first ever e-audiobook. The first in Steven Carroll’s TS Eliot Quartet, The lost life, it’s perhaps not the ideal car-book, being a little heavy on inner reflection and low on plot, but we are both finding it intriguing because of the Eliot connection.

Usually buzzing on January weekends, wildbrumby was surprisingly quiet. I suppose we shouldn’t have been surprised, given the recently quoted tourism downturn – 60% cancellations in non-fire-affected areas, nearly 100% in fire-affected areas – but we did think that, with its being the last day of the Thredbo Blues festival, there might have been a few more people around, but no, not at wildbrumby at least. I had my usual Kassler and Len his Goulash, and we shared our usual g-f chocolate cake. All delicious.

The rain started as we drove the last stint into Thredbo. We noted yet again the dead trees from the 2003 fires still being evident amongst the regenerated bush. Anyhow, it wasn’t easy, or fun, fiddling with the outdoor parking space’s combination lock in the rain, but who’s complaining? Well, me – just a little – because I can (but we’re glad of the rain, all the same.)

Back in Thredbo

The afternoon was lazy. Usually, we squeeze in a 4-5 kms walk on our first afternoon, but all we managed was a little stroll around the village after the rain stopped. The grassy banks of the pretty Thredbo River were rather squelchy. The air was full of music, with the last hours of the Blues Festival in full swing. We have always been here before the Festival so can’t comment on the numbers, but I hope they were happy with the turnout. We enjoyed hearing some of the music (while walking past the venues) but decided that we enjoy our peaceful Thredbo more, so will stick in future to our usual timeframe.

Indeed, the music caused us to change our first night tradition of drinks and bar food at Bernti’s. It was too cool to sit outside and too noisy – with a live musician playing – inside, so, still wanting that sort of meal after our filling Germanic wildbrumby lunch we checked out another favourite, the Après Bar, where, fortunately, another live musician had just finished. It was noisy in there – and again it was too cool for our preferred terrace sitting – but the audience dispersed fairly soon leaving just a couple of much quieter tables left.

The food was good – the whole menu able to be done g-f – so, I had a pulled pork burger and Len the Southern-fried chicken (which I could taste). Both delicious. While there, we had a brief chat with the owner who thanked us for coming. It’s always nice to be appreciated, but as we implied in our first post, coming here is not an imposition! He did share something we’d already guessed, the lobbying from the businesses and residents to the Fire Service and National Parks to re-open Thredbo last week. (Thredbo, being inside the National Park, has this double constraint of Parks and Fire people to deal with). Fortunately, with the rain of the last few days, the fires in the vicinity are now marked “under control” or “being controlled. I’m even more hopeful that the Thredbo Valley Track, on the Crackenback end of the park, will be open before we leave.

In the evening, we discovered that Netflix was available, and, without searching too deeply, saw that The Mule was available. Not wanting anything too demanding we decided to try it, and found it entertaining enough. Inspired by a true story, its ending was more sentimental and less colourful than the truth, but Eastwood, around 86 when it was filmed, is impressive.

Oh, but we did forget that on Sundays the little supermarket here closes early, and missed it by an hour. Having arrived here with our “empty esky”, as Australians are being exhorted to do this season, we had no breakfast food. What a shame! We’d have to breakfast out!

A bit like Melbourne

We awoke, as we do here, to the raucous cries of the raven, rather than the musical song of the magpie as at home. We headed across the square to Central Road 2625 cafe, where I had a big but delicious Nasi Goreng for breakfast. Tomorrow’s corn thins with hummus won’t be the same.

Now, the mountains are a bit like Melbourne, by which I mean that the weather can change hourly. So, with a forecast of 20-40mm rain, but some blue sky showing, we set off on our planned, necessarily short, walk for the day, the Riverside walk. It’s about 3.5kms, if you don’t join it up with Meadows Nature Track as we often do. We got three-quarters around before the rain came, and with umbrellas in hand didn’t get too wet while completing it.

As we do this walk on most visits to Thredbo, there’s nothing much to report. Being a bit later in the season I wasn’t sure what would be in flower, but the usual leptospermum, prostanthera, and kunzea were still evident, along with the end of the everlastings and trigger plants. And of course, there were many presents of wombat scat along the trail, easily identified by their cube shape and rock and ledge locations.

The rest of the day was spent quietly, reading, resting, watching TV (some tennis for Sue and American football for Len), before heading out to the Terrace (above the Après Bar) for dinner. We dined very well as we usually do, complete with views to the range.

Some images