12th Feb , Highest Mountain, longest beach

After a great pancake breakfast we catch a chair lift up into the "mountains". With the Alpine lodge the night before and now this I'm feeling a bit confused. It could pass for the Alps if you squinted. However with the benefit of eyesight you realise at once that the trees are wrong- Snowy gums rather than pines- and that left me with the feeling of having slid into another dimension. Above the tree line and it's a 6.5km easy walk up to top of Australia. Unfortunately the cloud cover gets heavier and although we're spared rain there's nothing to see from the top. At 9 degrees C and me in my gortex jacket it could pass for the Lake District- except for the lack of sheep and the delicate alpine-type plants.
Back down and after lunch on the road to take the scenic route from Jindabyne through the Snowy river National Park. Much of this is on a unsealed road- although reasonably driveable, probably more so when it's not raining. For the rain's caught us up in heavy showers. This is clearly the part of the trip when the guide educates you regarding Australian music so we start we the country stuff, move through the Aboriginal bands to more contemporary.
All the time winding along hairpin, with sheer drops below and nothing on the horizon except gum trees. I suddenly begin to get a sense of just how vast Australia is. The forests are interspersed with skeletal leafless trees- victims of the 2003 bush fire which burnt for 6 weeks! Australian species though are designed for this and regeneration has left the forest as green as before.
A great moment as spectacular views unravel, Men At Work- I come from a land down under plays and a kangaroo dashes across the road. So this is Australia afterall.
At Wulgumerang the proper road resumes and we arrive at Lakes Entrance. A touristy rather tawdry town full of motels where the Gippsland lakes reach the sea at 90 mile beach.