Last night the thermometer dropped
to -5 ⁰C! I was ready for glacial temperatures, however, and slept toasty warm inside
my sleeping bag and covered by my excellent comforter. Getting out of bed, however,
was a completely different proposition. I simply could not face another shower
in a frigid bathhouse, so today I will have to make my explorations au jus.
My plan to day is to cut a path
across the Kosciuszko National Park North. The park was apparently established
after the Snowy Mountains Scheme was authorized, and I suspect it was motivated
to guarantee good watershed management. Like national parks in Europe, the ones
here are meant to set aside land for multiple beneficial uses, the way national
forests are managed in the US. Of course recreational and environmental uses have
high priority, but forest management and limited agriculture and animal husbandry
are included in the mix.
I left Cooma, headed to Adaminaby
and Lake Eucumbene, which is the big buffer reservoir of the whole hydrologic
scheme. The road trip was a bit disappointing, just as if I was traversing the
low foothills of the Sierra Nevada. Lots of pasture and a few valley oaks
eucalypti, with a few granite boulders sticking out of the dry grass instead of
the metamorphic tombstones we are used to in California. Once I got to the lake
I got a completely different memory intruding into my thoughts. I could imagine
I was in the shores of the Lago de Guadalupe, north of Mexico City, where the eucalypti
offer little shade (did you now that as a clever adaptation to hot weather the
leaves of many eucalyptus species rotate to become parallel to the incoming sun
rays, so the trees offer little shade?) and the lake water looks like coffee
and milk because of high turbidity. I was under-impressed.
But from Adaminaby to Talbingo, which
is the national park proper, the situation was quite different. It may not be a
spectacular forest, but it is green and heavily vegetated, and now and then you
come to impressive canyons. This part of the trip is also a practical course in
necromarsupiology (ha, how is that for a word you all mammalologists of the
world!). In other words, you see lots of road kill kangaroos, wallabies, and
wombats (and a few emu youngsters, but those are not marsupials). Wombats are
rodents, but they look just like you imagine a Christmas pig should look like,
except that they are furry. I am sure every Australian kid has had a wombat
stuffed toy, just like our kids have teddy bears. Wombats, which are fat and
furry, are very efficient diggers, so their marsupial pouch has evolved to
point backwards, so the wombat fetus can be nice and warm in mama’s pouch, free
of flying dirt, as she digs her burrow.
Talbingo is the ultimate cute
Australian holiday town, which means it is quite modern looking. The houses
look like the modernist stage of say Palm Springs (meaning 1950’s and 1960’s),
set in the middle of carefully manicured lawns. Near the town is the Blowering Reservoir,
which is another of the big reservoirs of the hydrologic scheme. Hmm … the
water looks really low, just like it was in Lake Eucumbene. That got me
thinking that the snow season, which generally goes from late May to early
November is kind of late coming (mind you, I am not asking for snow right now,
because I am definitely not prepared for it). Australia had low precipitation
from 2013 to 2016, and 2017 and 2018 were nothing to write home about, so I am
sure the folks from Snowy Hydro are lighting candles to their favorite saints.
I had scheduled four days to visit
the Snowy Mountains, but I think I am ready to move on. Maybe I should consider
spending a day in Canberra before heading for the Blue Ridge.
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