“Blue Waterholes is very pretty in the right light”
“We dined on Peking Duck, gourmet meals having become passé”
“I was agog at the number of holidayers camped along Blowering Dam foreshore”
Dead Horse, dead trees, dead rocks, was there anything to savour?
It was time for our last walk in the Snowys, to Dead Horse Gap from Crackenback and then down Thredbo Creek back to the motorhome which would take our total walking over four days to about 40 kilometres.
The healing powers of sleep will never be underestimated by Lorraine and me but we also knew this would be our last serious walk of the tour.
It was a chairlift ride to the top of Crackenback and then left instead of straight ahead to Kosciuszko. This took us initially past Ramshead, that rugged yet brittle clump of rocks that are much more dramatic than anything Kosciuszko had to offer. Set beyond the summer blooms they dominate the landscape, initially offering a stark contrast to the softness of the tiny petals. Further on high the gossamer cirrus clouds eked patterns out in an otherwise brilliant blue sky; we were feeling like privileged people, just how good was this.
The track is just that; no broad boardwalk this day, simply a narrow rut through the flora heading off over the horizon and then descending through a surreal landscape of bleached snow gums darting off at all angles. Defoliated by the horrendous 2003 bushfires, the skeletal remains were so eye catching we stumbled now and then gaping at them. The lignotuber regrowth is different from other trees, they don’t sprout from the branches but from the base and, in this harsh climate, it’s a slow process. It was remarkable to see them in their thousands and know they would all fall over one day but so far stood erect, though lifeless.