Australia Part IV - Day Four

O.K. So you can't call me a slacker because I've just recently shed the yolk of my thesis, but I do apologize for the lack of blog posting recently. Scott and I are going to be doing some tramping this weekend, so hopefully we will have more interesting posts soon. As it is, here is the highly- anticipated-but-probably-disappointing continuation of our Australia trip.

Day 4: We were up at a reasonable time to enjoy a breakfast of beans and toast and yogurt and mango and then off to the clubhouse for a little ping-pong and actual tennis before packing up and heading out to Jindabyne. Jindabyne is slightly south and further west towards the interior of Australia. It is actually a ski resort town near Mt. Kosciuszko which we endeavored to climb.

Aaaand, we're off!

Our first stop on the four hour car ride was Tilba which was south and still along the coast. They are relatively famous for their cheese and we ate lunch at the cheese factory. The lady there was wonderful and we dined on olive cheese and cracked pepper cheese with crackers and chutney. Unfortunately, even though it seemed like a tourist town, most of the other residents we ran into were quite unfriendly and we failed to purchase any souvenirs mainly because people refused to acknowledge us and take our money.

That is me drinking coke out of a glass bottle at the Tilba Cheese Factory.

Also in Tilba, I think...

Rain forest.

Now for all those of you thinking Australia is mostly desert, the area between the coast and the interior in NSW is actually a mountainous rain forest. Neat huh? Further interior are the wide open plains that I'd been picturing. One other stop we made was in Nimmitable.

Cool duck in Nimmitabel.

They were quite friendly ducks.

This is the old mill in Nimmitabel made famous by its appearance in the movie The Sundowners.

The plains! The plains!

Anyhoo, our next stop was in Coomba where we were informed that it was going to be rainy the next day (i.e. the day we intended to climb Mt. Kosciuszko). Saddened at the news and realizing that we had not brought any jackets with us, we headed into an outdoor equipment retailer and were almost suckered into purchasing $65 AUD jackets before going with $4 panchos instead.

The Berridale Boulders.

There were quite a few of them!

When we finally reached Jindabyne, we turned out to be the only ones staying in the hostel. Did I mention that we were there in the off season? Anyways, our first task was to do a little shopping and buy some bacon for the next mornings breakfast. Fail. The grocery store only had NZ style bacon, which is to say, ham. Our next task was to use the GPS we had rented from the car rental agency to locate a geocache nearby and drop off a travel bug that I'd had for about 2 years. FAIL. The GPS did not actually do coordinates. What!? GRUMBLE. Our next task was to find someplace to grab a delicious dinner. FAIL! The only restaurant open boasted "Australia's Greatest Burgers" if that is true I weep for the poor burger-deprived Australians. Well, at least we noticed that the hostel had a DVD player and a VCR and some free DVDs and VHS movies to watch to keep us entertained for the rest of the evening. FAIL!! The best we could find were Young Einstein taped off the television and Volcano.

Lake Jindabyne.

All in all, not our finest day, but warm, comfortable, quiet sleep.