We rock-hop across the Snowy River, crystal clear as it flows from the plateau we descended during the day. The day is bright, warm (for once), and full of flies. There is only Heartbreak Hill to ascend, and the journey is complete. Back to a nice room, bed, and hot shower, but the memories of this walk will still linger on.

That’s all from the Snowy Mountains, and from my road trip. Next time I will post about more local places to Sydney.

Snowgums are remarkable trees. They can endure the cold and are strengthened by the wind. I like them for their beautiful trunks – all twisted and gnarled, their bark made up of gorgeous colours. Here are some wonderful specimens near Charlottes Pass.

The most well-known lake is the aptly named Blue Lake, about an hour’s walk from Charlottes Pass. It’s a rugged lake, with snow drifts, secret caves and waterfalls.

It’s a very deep and very cold lake. You can swim in here, but I wasn’t doing such a thing on that windy, cool day.

By midday, we’ve come a long way since the morning, walking over the ridge from the ‘peaks’ on the horizon. That’s what makes the area so very unassuming – you can hardly tell Mt Kozzie from any other peak, and it’s often mistaken with Mt Townsend, a few kilometres away.

You can see there were still plenty of snow drifts in mid-December, and we had to navigate through perhaps half a dozen of them through the course of the morning. Having hardly been in snow before, it certainly was a novel experience for me.

Beyond Lake Albina is a view that takes your breath away.

Look closer however, and the view tells of tragedy. In the summer of 2003, forty fires caused by lightning strikes raged through the park, burning over half the area. The effects of those can still be seen seven years later in the bare trunks of mountain ash and snowgums, that from a distance look like snow.

The fires kill mountain ash outright, but new growth is spawn from seeds. The snowgum however is a little more ingenius – the roots of the tree remain alive, and new growth shoots above ground from them.

Our route the next day was on track, taking us on a tour of the 5 glacier lakes in the park – and the only glacier lakes on the Australian mainland (all the others are down in Tasmania). The most beautiful of these was Lake Albina, set in a little valley of boulder strewn heath, overlooking the steeper vales below.

Full-up on nibblies, dinner and dessert, we wobbled our way 2km up the track to the top of Mount Kosciuszko to view the sunset. Mt Kozzie in summer is usually full of people, so it was a complete luxury to be at the top of Australia in the company of only four others, nibbling on Ferrero Rocher’s while the sun sets. The golden light beautifully illuminated the granite boulders strewn across the summit, as well as the layers of hills that seemingly stretched forever. In the quiet of the closing day, I felt very blessed to be able to experience such a scene.