Day 1 - Home to Thredbo ( a long and boring drive )

When we wrangled our car out of the city traffics and on to Hume Highway, it was just after nine, it took us a good hour and a quarter to achieve that. What's in front, is a boring drive ( hopefully ! ) on freeway bitumen to Canberra, then onto Cooma, Jindabyne, then some more, to Thredbo and Tom Groggin, our destination tonight.  A good 490 Km and 8 hours ahead of us before our candle dinner with the 'Roo families.

Boring drives are drowsy inductive, so I threw the key to TC Chan, who rode shot gun with me. He is one of my alumni from my secondary school in Hong Kong, whom I invited to experience a 4x4 camping trip for the first time.

With his vast knowledge about wildlife and botany, TC will add immense value to the trip.

And I thought he may have better luck at throwing the gathering clouds behind us.

Our intended hosts and destination for the night

But we could not shake the cloudy day off, it was getting darker and darker...I could have upset the Rain God last night, forgetting something in the prayer!

When TC rounded the last curve into Jindabyne, it started to bucket down...absolutely relentless!

Langi standing firm in the face of gathering dark clouds at Jindaybyne

By the time, we got to Thredbo, 25 Km from Tom Groggin, the sky opened up, it was torrential............no chance for Tom Groggin, we realised, so it was the YHA at Thredbo for some bunker bed comfort, and snoring companies for the night.

Later that night, Andre, our other team member, joint the snoring symphony after bringing in his well equipped Prado.

I should have taken that business card offered by Rain God's agent the other day, it is too late. Hope he'll quell his displeasure by tomorrow morning.

Wondered what conditions will the Murray River crossing be, will it be too deep with all that waters?  Do we need to knock on the door of Tom Groggin Station to ask for permission to cross the bridge through their property  ? And where is that bridge, by the way?

Do we need to knock on their doors in order to cross the Murray River?

Just to get an idea the sort of tracks that are ahead of us in the next week or two,  here are some examples

Next Day : Day 2 - Go Up Mt Pinnibar