Day trip to Mount Selwyn

The scenery as you drive towards the Snowy Mountain snowfields is spectacular. Trees, rivers and lakes give way to snowgum covered mountains and the whole incredible scene is punctuated only by the winding sable coloured road on which you drive. The car journey to Mount Selwyn where we were heading is a little under 3 hours but the vistas that you see on the way are breathtaking.

Audrey, Eli and I had taken a day off work (Amy had a kid-free day back in Canberra) and we were going in search of some of the last snow of winter. The daffodils now flowering in our front garden heralding the oncoming Spring (and warmer months) and reminding us that there wasn't much time to see the snow before it retreated for another year.

We'd been to a snow resort called Perisher a couple of years ago, but this time we were heading for Selwyn which we'd told had gentler slopes and was more 'child-friendly'.

About an hour south of Canberra is the country town of Cooma, which we reached just after 10am, and resisting the regular offer of snow chains for our car tyres we stopped only to buy mittens to protect the kids hands from the cold snow (blue and pink mittens obviously). Cooma is an interesting town, seemingly entirely reliant on the nearby snowfields and the convoy of visitors from Canberra to the snow. The kids loved the (wooden) snowman who paraded along many of the shopfronts there - I think we must have waved at almost every one of them as we drove out of town.

From there we headed north and reached Selwyn just before lunchtime. After parking in the nearby carpark we hired our toboggans, blue and purple (pink wasn't available) and ate our sandwiches in the small but chiqui lodge besides the main slope.

Then we headed onto the slopes. Both Audrey and Eli were tentative at first, it took a couple of rides with all of us squeezed onto a single toboggan before they really got going, eventually both of them embraced it with gusto.

Unfortunately Audrey and Eli's growth in confidence didn't bring with it an increase in steering ability and it was tricky at times trying to get them to avoid the bigger kids or adults, but everyone was very understanding but in truth being midweek we didn't have many others to contend with.

We took a short break to build a snowman - Amy had ensured that Audrey and Eli came prepared with carrot nose (which Eli promptly ate) and then we headed back for more fun.

The afternoon sun was melting the snow and our shoes and socks were sodden by the end of the day, but cold feet were more than compensated for by the fun we'd had.

We headed back to Canberra in late afternoon, the sky over the mountains turning pink (to Audrey's delight) as we got back in the car. Audrey and Eli slumped in their seats until we reached the warmth of the fish and chip shop in Cooma and then two tired children (and a tired Dad) reached Canberra just after 8pm.

Arriving at Selwyn after our drive



By the main slope




First tentative ride



Memories of Sedgley Beacon

With snowman



Eli eats the nose



Audrey gives the snowman the treatment