Saturday 12 July 2014

Submerged

It's school holidays and we had nothing planned. The girls are quite happy just to hang out at home being very lazy or catch up with some friends watching movies. And then it snowed. It didn't snow near us but close enough that we could get there in a day. We hadn't taken a snow holiday in many years and the girls had only been on skis once before. So we decided to book a short break.

We had no particular destination in mind. The ski season had started late this year. The opening weekend saw no snow at all and the resorts were beginning to get a bit desperate four weeks later when a sudden change in weather coincided with the beginning of the school holidays. I jumped online and literally grabbed the first available accommodation that fitted our price range.

Lampe Homestead, TalbingoTalbingo is about five hours drive from our place and an easy 40 minutes from Selwyn Skifields in southern New South Wales. The town is little more than a tourist park, some cabins, a small country club, half a dozen shops and Talbingo Lodge where we would base ourselves for the next three nights. The original town lies beneath the lake that flooded the valley during construction of the Snowy Hydro-Electric Scheme. This old photo shows the original pub which now lies submerged beneath the lake. Another historic building lost to progress was the Lampe Homestead, the birthplace of acclaimed Australian author Miles Franklin.

Our accommodation consisted of a single room for the four of us with bunk beds. The bathroom facilities were shared and meals were taken in the downstairs bar and bistro. Most of the staff at the lodge at the time we stayed were young travelers. We met a mixture of English, Canadian and French nationals during our stay. Our host, Dave is very friendly and the atmosphere at the lodge is warm and welcoming. One word of warning, the bar and bistro serve the entire town so on busy nights it's a really good idea to get your dinner order in ahead of the rush. Our order went missing one night but the staff were extremely apologetic and presented us with a complimentary bottle of wine to make up for it.

Our short stay in The Snowy Mountains continues here.

15 comments:

Susanna said...

What a wonderful way to spend school holidays with the family. Half your luck!

ElleDeeEsse said...

It was good Susanna. We really enjoyed it

Aduke Schulist said...

Sounds nice! I don't think I've ever slept on a bunk bed as an adult.

Unknown said...

This would be a nice way to spend time with the kids during school break. So school break is the same down under? You start in the fall there too? I remember you said it was snowing there... so I'm curious if everything is backwards ;)

ElleDeeEsse said...

We have a two week term break in July. We have our summer break from mid December to the end of January so Christmas is in our summer break

Yvonne Roga said...

Sounds like you had a great time. Nothing like spending time with the family.

Unknown said...

I'm tripping out! You really are on the other side of the world, doing things backwards!

What direction does your toilet flush? Do you call it a toilet?

ElleDeeEsse said...

Tim we have lots of names for that particular device and toilet is one of them. Australians have quite a colourful vocabulary but perhaps that's a topic for another post. It is said that our toilets and sinks drain in the opposite direction to those in the northern hemisphere but I personally haven't noticed

Clara said...

I'm envious. Great way to spend a break.

Leelo said...

Sounds like a great place!

Lesley said...

Sounds like a great place to hang out with your daughters on break. I like that you take them places and do things with them instead of letting them sit around and do nothing (which mine would prefer).

I think it's crazy too that it's snowing there just because it is so hot here where I live right now. Crazy that winter time is in summer time, I never really thought about it before.

Yes, Tim, their water flows another way! LOL

Unknown said...

Wow...good times! And it's funny cuz I was a bit confused for a moment since we're in the middle of summer here, then I read you're in Wales. It suddenly made sense :)

KGDesigns said...

What a great way to spend the school break. Thanks to the blog, it will be fun for your kids to look back on these times when they're older.

ElleDeeEsse said...

Close Sharon; New South Wales is a state in Australia :)

Jeff Wise said...

Oh yeah! You're in winter now! I was asking myself, where in America is it snowing right now! Maybe Mount Rainier! Glad you're getting to relax!

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