Alpenhorn Lodge Thredbo Village

These were the biggest and most beautiful caves I have been in. The stalactites and stalagmites were enormous. There were 4 caves which could be visited we managed two of them. The first had only recently been opened to the public and you could walk through at your own pace, ours had to be pretty quick to fit in the guided tour in the next cave and a swim in the thermal pool. The caves were quite different due to their age. I hope the photos show how wonderful they were.

... and we wearily trod to the Alpine hotel to visit Jimmy who now works there. After catching up with him we had a quick beer at the pub then went back to camp to put or tired legs up around the campfire.

Found: coffee cup
Quote of the stop: (yelled across pub)
Lady: "John they've got boags draught do you still want a shandy or do you want a real beer"
Man: "I want a shandy"
Lessons Learnt: It takes a while to climb mount Kosciuszko

... walkways it still is – so may people were definitely out for a stroll. There was the guy in the soggy blue plimsolls (not best for the snow eh sir) or the more senior lady in the gold spangley trainers but they could not compete. The winner was the young woman in the cut off jeans and DKNY T-Shirt, full slap and all the jewellery; I saw her near the start of the walk heaven knows what state she would have been at the top of the mountain ...

... on random spin. This one is called 'Hey! You say I’m fab but you never play me’ and is a good example of the wonderful auto playlist function on the iPod. This one basically adds anything to the playlist that has a four or five star rating and a playcount of 3 or less. I love this feature you can make just the most obscure playlists up – but I suspect having 32000+ tracks helps as it has plenty of material to choose from.

... was bloody well hungry so had a substantial bacon, egg, toast n trimmings with fresh orange thinking quite naively this would be what i would be eating most days. Time for introductions with the gang.

What's your name?
Where are you from?
Where have you been?
How long have you been in Australia? and
Where are you going next?

The standard questions you ask everyone you meet - i think you should have like big wipe-clean name badges with ...

That night we headed up into australia's snowy mountians, which are so named as they have snow on them in the winter. which means we also had a chance to ski or snowboard! it was a pretty good deal on the snowboarding, and i really wanted to give it a go, so i signed up for it for the next morning!

that evening we were at the foot of the mountains, so it wasnt snowing, but was rather cold. but the place we were staying ...

As Sinead is in Sydney and we are in Melbourne, there was talk of meeting half way in Thredbo for the Queens Birthday weekend. Skiing was the activity (well meant to be). But there was 0% chance of snow forecast so there was no skiing. We rented a car...meant to be a small car but we received a Hondi Accent, lovely white one(Sarah greatly dislikes white cars). So we set off on our 7.5hour journey, or so googlemaps and whereis maps told us, and ...

... they were staying in Jindabyne and couldn't hang around for dinner. Mark, Gary and I hit the pub for dinner and drinks and then wandered up to the village square to hear The Angels play to the mass crowd. This concert was much better than the previous night - the crowd was more rowdy, it was in the open air and the music was louder. It took me back to my teenage years - except this time the crowd in front of me was a sea of grey hair.

... rolling down the hill. The one time i acually managed to stay on the snowboard getting off the skii lift i went straight into a little kid and his very angry dad........i had to head down the slope fairly lively after that! So we traded it the boards for skii's for the next day. Jenny took to the skii's like a duck to water, she was flying all over the place, where i was flying all over the place. It really ...

... whale victim in the confines of the bay, while Old Tom would swim to the shore based whaling stations and by thrashing his tail, alert the whaling crews. Tom then led the whaleboats to the whale, where a harpoon quickly dispatched its victim. The carcass would be left overnight permitting the killer pack to eed on the only bits they wanted, the lips and the tongue (which would weigh over 4 tonnes). The following morning the whale would be towed ashore for the rendering process at ...