Jindabyne, Kosciuszko National Park and Perisher Valley/Charlotte Pass

Cycle along the lake’s edge or hire a runabout or catamaran for time on the water. Take a scenic or fishing boat charter, or take to the air in a scenic flight. Visit the monument to Sir Paul Edmund Strzelecki and learn why he was significant to the region. Check out the Jindabyne Dam wall and take a mountain bike ride from there to Tyrollean Village. Go fishing in the lake or in one of the many surrounding streams, and catch Rainbow or Brown Trout and the occasional Brook or Atlantic Salmon. Fishing licences are required in NSW, and short stay licences are available from a number of outlets including many service stations.

Leave Jindabyne via the Kosciusko Road and venture into Kosciusko National Park. Passes are sold at the gate or at the Snowy Mountains Visitors Centre in Jindabyne. Stop at Waste Point lookout for great views of Lake Jindabyne. A little further on, the Kosciuszko Education Centre (open seasonally) gives some understanding of the features, flora and fauna of the mountains, including the illusive pygmy possum and corroboree frog. There are lovely mountain forest walks commencing from here.

Enter the Alpine Region, where the trees thin and become restricted to the warmer locations along ridge lines towards Perisher Valley. This ski village is a quiet haven for walkers in Summer. A half-day walk to the Porcupine Rocks is a must.

Drive on to Charlotte Pass, Australia’s highest ski village (along the way stop at Alpine Eyre Kiosk for a snack or lunch). Witness magnificent views of Australia’s Alpine Zone. On the horizon, across the “Main Range”, is Mount Kosciusko. A return walk to the top of Kosciusko is a full day’s trek. Just below this, witness the first flows of the iconic Snowy River.