The High Country

After getting a few logistical things taken care of in Albury, we set out for a less than ambitious 40k stint to the lovely little town of Tallangatta. We enjoyed one of the better sunset settings we've seen, set in a valley across a tragically low resevoir and rolling hills. The colors were brilliant! We arrived into Tallangatta at dusk and headed straight for the pub, still with our kebabs from Albury in our packs. With only two other people in the pub, we weren't about to pull out the kebabs we were earlier salavating at the mouth over. But, after a few skooners and plenty of questions about our ride later, we made friends with the wonderful Jo Stratton behind the bar. She offered us accommodation at the Tallangatta Hotel Bungalows, not only free of charge, but they came with two more skooners! sweeet. As we got comfortable there, aaron thought for a minute this is the kind of place that people check into, but they never check out.

We headed out early that day for an ambitious day of riding. We hoped to land in Corryong, some 80k away and over two mtn ranges. About half way thru the ride, with the sun blistering and the ladies totally absent, aaron found out the brilliant idea of spending precious communal money on a ripened cadbury egg was not such a brilliant idea. The egg hatched at the bottom of his camel pack and generously left remnants of itself on just about everything in his bag. No worries though, no calorie goes to waste here...he licked every bit of it up.

After enjoying the sites of a beautiful horse playing in a picture perfect setting, we arrived in Corryong well ahead of schedule. We found a community pool and Aaron had to stop Eric from riding his bike straight into it... we had a bit of a swim to lower the ol' body temp. at dinner we met Bruce and Paula and had a good laugh about how stupid this whole ride idea thing is...

We camped at a skate park that night and as we were searching for the perfect tent footprint, Eric walked into a spider web he didn't see. A bit startled, he looked up to see a ridiculously offensive looking spider, all hairy and red and huge and fangy and probably a baby eater. a pic appears in the slide show. He later saw a slightly smaller, though still disturbingly large spider, cruising around the ground about 20 ft from our tents. not cool.

We woke up to a less than fun wet morning and had a big day of climbs to Geehi. Geehi is a great site set between mountains with a crystal clear creek running thru it, parrots flying overhead, trout jumping for insects, kangaroos frolicking for food, and aaron bathing naked in the water. all very aesthetically pleasing!

We both couldn't get enough of this camp setting. the fresh water was deemed by our lab to be clean enough to drink out of (that and we had literally no way to get water for some 30k), and the dusk fire took the chill out of the air and the stars were brilliant.

we had been hearing for some time about the intense climbing we had in store for us before reaching Mt Kosciusko; what we didn't know was that the climbs were matched with equal downhills, making the climb about 3 times as long as it needed to be. also, not cool. we stopped in the Snowy River so that Aaron could pretend he was John Riley for a minute and we stumbled across a tiger snake, just in the middle of the path. if that wasn't enough, we came across two more tigers mating. Eric was excited to finally get a few naughty pics in our collection, so he snapped away.

For the final climb, the weather acted up and the roads got steeper. at one point, the winds picked up enough to start tearing down trees. we came across a 50ft tree that fell clear 'cross the road. Hit with wind and rain, we couldn't pass the tree without trying to clear the road. it was an accident waiting to happen. so, in a gracious diplomatic maneuver, we threw our bikes to the side, wiped the sweat, sunscreen, and rainwater from our tired faces and tirelessly moved the trees. 2 minutes later it was clear.

Perhaps the highlight of the day came about 50 meters from the top of the never-ending hill when we heard a car horn and a guy yelling at us to hurry the hell up. who was it but Bruce from the pub in corryong! he drove past us, ran out of his car, placed a beer in the road, and waved his hanker chief in a dramatic push to the top. Before we even had a chance to park the ol' bikes, Big Bruce already had chairs, blankets, snacks, and beer set up for us! bloody fantastic! We couldn't help but laugh at the impeccable timing of our new friends as we arrived into Thredbo.

We are now at the base of Kosciusko and are about to set out on our day hike and trail run, though Aaron is in recovery mode from a wicked case of food poisoning from the Hawaiian pizza he woofed down last night. facing the first night of comfy beds and a temperature controlled room, aaron had to watch the sound sleep eric was enjoying while he was up every 30 min yakking his guts out. Not to mention the runs he couldn't control that well. We're having a hard time writing now, as Aaron has to make emergency runs to the toilet to open the ol' release valve, rapidly becoming dehydrated. he's been drinking, only problem is it seems to be going straight thru him. He thinks he might die, a slow and agonizing death. but my vast medical knowledge says he'll be ok. But the man's a champ and he's up for the challenge of Australia's highest peak in the world.