Near Kahncoban we see giant water pipes in the landscape. We are interested to visit the power station, but unfortunately no access for unauthorised personnel.
After loading up our second set of files on the homepage, we left. That loading cost us lots of time as the hundreds of files of all the pictures had to be uploaded one by one, as the normal FTP protocol did not work on the computers there. The lady of the internet café said embarrassed that the man who set it all up left and the man taking care for the maintenance could no fix it.
The road after Kahncoban climbed steeply and after passing along an artificial lake,
we visited
the power station Murray 1. We had that
'deja vu' feeling as we visited this power
station some years earlier. But as we
travelled through opposite direction, the
scenery looked total different. And we had
this year collected lots of information on
the Snowy Hydro projects, so this was
nicely complementary. The power station
has an output of 950 megawatt, more than a
big conventional or nuclear power station.
It was in full operation, all generators
and equipment humming. A big stream of
fresh water left the power plant and later
the energy was extracted once more at the
power station near Kahncoban, The 3 four
meter wide pipes dominate in white colour
the landscape.
The forest was impressive as well,
with the
usual giant gumtrees. The vegetation
differs remarkably from slope to slope.
From an outlook we had an excellent view
on the more
than 2000m high mountain ridge.
The view on the forest was wonderful
and
changed every corner of the winding road.
In the second half of the trip we saw the results of the giant bush fires this spring,
widely
reported in the press. It was still an
area dominated by charred tree trunks,and
cleared from the low vegetation that was
burned away till the soil, but
the regeneration was already visible.
Grasses
were sprouting and many trees have new
leaves emerging from buds. It is just a
natural cycle here.Half way the trip Mariska made it clear it was enough for her today, so we pulled from the road in a nice area, and decided to stay here for the night, in nature on our own power.
When we checked out the location it was soon clear we found ourselves in an area occupied by an other family, of rather big kangaroos.
They watched us from a distance. Mariska
was very interested in the kangaroos
and went
to them with the big ball, 
likely she was thinking that kangaroos are
playing pals. It looked like one of the
kangaroo babies was interested in Mariska,
but we did not like to try it out.1363 As
these kangaroos are wild ones and rather
unpredictable, we kept Mariska on a
distance from the kangaroos.
We made a walk over the nice area
and could
take some nice pictures with towering
clouds at sunset.
Next morning we woke up in the wilderness,
enjoying the nice scenery 
. We left
early for Thredbo, the trip was awesome. Of
course we once in a while crossed forest,
damaged by fire. Some times a forest was
damages under, while the tops were normal
green 
.
Thredbo,1365m high, is the premier Australian luxe ski resort, at the foot of the Mount Kosciuszko, the highest Australian mountain of about 2200m. The apartments are sold for incredible prices. A two bedroom apartment is sold for slightly under one million dollar. The ski area is nice and two chairlifts are hauling people to the top.
From there
lots of nice runs are situated at the cool
southern slopes. The temperature was very
comfortable at this altitude, at least
10ndegrees cooler than in the lowlands.
The town was extended at a high pace and
was considerably bigger than 5 years ago,
when we were there for the first time.
Huge parking areas are available.
Skiing
there must be extremely expensive. It is
in a national park and even for a car you
have to pay a daily 16 dollar fee.After a stroll in the village, where we and doing some shopping we left for the next surprise, the valley north of Thredbo, parallel to the Thredbo valley, named Perisher. Here the road climbed steadily till 1835 meter, via several passes of more than 1600m, where low snowgums (eucalyptus pauciflora) tried to survive.
We first wanted to go to the end of the end of the valley, to the Charlotte pass, most likely the highest road in Australia.
There was even a ski village near the
Charlotte pass, named with unbelievable
creativity: Charlotte Pass village. From
the Charlotte pass was a 3 hour walking
track to the highest Australian mountain,
the Mount Kosciuszko,named after a
general. The Mount Kosciuszko in not an
impressive peak but a slightly higher hill
than some others at this high plain.
Clearly visible are the valleys churned out by glaciers in past ice ages.
The light
was so bright that Birgitt and Mariska
needed their sunglasses.
On the
warm north side (typical on the southern
hemisphere) even trees could survive at
this altitude. And as usual the unique
flowers, only living here.
The mountain swamps 
and the
little rivers created their own
micro climate and
flora.
Perisher is a high altitude ski resort with lots of lifts. The vertical difference did not look much, but still the Perisher complex looked big. We like to get some more information about the ski possibilities but in Perisher there are only winter activities, and now only people working for maintenance.
We went to
the empty almost dusty information office
to ask for information about winter sport
in Perisher. The lady, with a heavy German
accent, looked however at this difficult
question, as puzzled as a monkey studying
in a rusty watch. So we still do not know
the details.
There are not that much alpine resorts in
Australia, so all Australian winter
sporters have to be accommodated in the few
resorts.
We enjoyed the magnificent landscape and wanted to see the third road in the area, leading to Guthega. On descending to the power station there, we noticed a sudden change in trees and plants. Near the power station was a fast river, fed by the 4m thick water pipes in the distance.
The
power station was smaller than the Murray
station, but still produced a big stream,
just left of the picture is the
power station Guthega 
.
The Snowy Hydro is a magnificent system, producing lots of renewable energy, stabilising the water flow to the rivers and preventing floods. Renewable energy is now very fashionable in times of climate change. Of course there is a drawback. Unique alpine regions are simply destroyed by making huge artificial lakes. And the damage of the enormous construction works, listed as one of the wonders of engineering, the dams, the channels, pipes and power station has caused unrepairable damage. Access roads for the construction and maintenance have made the area accessible for mass tourism. Now at some places Snowy Hydro tries to regenerate some of the damage in a few areas. We indeed saw a few trees planted. That surely must give a good feeling but is definitely only symbolic. Modern life goes on and we have to live with the consequences.
We went to the caravanpark, Jindabyne. same as we visited 5 years ago. The management has made a big improvement in quality. In winter this caravan park was the ideal place to stay for budget skiers. It was only 20 km to the skiing area's. In summer it is on the border of a giant lake, part of the Snowy Hydro Scheme. So summer and winter guests, easy to make it profitable.
The next morning we made only a short trip, to Cooma, a regional centre. Here is the headquarters of Snowy Hydro with an information and education centre. On the way to Cooma we saw an interesting souvenir of the ice ages: displaced boulders.
, with
impressive clouds in the background. The
boulders were transported by the
glaciers.
They are
rounded as countless times they bumped on
each other. When the glaciers 'retreated',
the giant boulders were left.
Of course
the glaciers did not retreat, as they only
go forward. They only get bigger or
smaller and disappeared.
Another surprise: the fields were here green. It had rained the day before and all creeks and small rivers had water. You expect that this area is in the rain shadow of the Snowy Mountains, in the prevailing westerly winds. But is proved to be the opposite: the west side was totally dry and the east side was green. Its shows once more that in Australia things are different.
We saw an inviting sign: Heidi's Austrian Tearoom, where Apfelstrudel was indicated. Of course we needed a break from Australian food and enjoyed a nice Apfelstrudel lunch at Heidi's. It tasted very good.
From the hill, where Heidi had her Konditorei, we had a nice view over the Snowy Mountains. Exactly in the middle is the Mount Kosciuszko, hardly visible, from a distance of 90 km s.
Birgitt and Mariska show the northerly
direction, where other mountains of the
Great Dividing Range are showing.
The information centre of Snowy Hydro is extensive and complete. It gives a clear view of the planning and building of the Snowy Hydro Scheme. We had seen many fragments of it, here it came all together. Impressive were the many pictures of the water tunnels, sometimes 30 km long and as big as a tunnel for cars, 6 meter diameter. There were all nice schemes which showed how the flow was at this moment. Very interesting were the real time display which turbine was in use, how much electricity was produced and how much water was transported. Despite the drought, all but one power stations were working at full power. No energy is 'saved', when the water is there, it will be used.
A part of the exposition was the real time display of the liberalised electricity market. Priced vary per minute and the lowest production price unit gets the chance to operate at full power. All capacity is interlinked and the price is dependant on market forces. It was not made clear how competitive the Snowy Hydro was, in relation to coal fires power stations. Of course the water is free, but the infrastructure is expensive.
We stayed the caravanpark in Cooma, where a thunderstorm in the evening made a nice double rainbow.
