Where's Blue Lake?

Last week we had visitors - our cuzs - more commonly known as Heather and Adrian (or whale or daisy....).  After arriving on Monday arvo, our plans involved driving to Guthega on Tuesday, staying there until Thursday then seeing these guys off to Sydney on Friday. 

Tuesday morning dawned, in fact the rooster (aka Ella) got all confused as to the time and started happily chatting and singing to herself at 4.30am!  After some warm milk and another hour of talking, she finally decided to drift back off to sleep to wake at 8.30am - a much more reasonable hour.

The drive to Guthega was fairly uneventful with Andy and Ella dozing off at various points as both were a little under the weather.  Traditional lunch stop at the Sub Lime Cafe in Jindabyne was quite disappointing although Adrian did enjoy his chickpea burger. After arriving and unpacking Adrian, Ella and I headed off on a short wander down to the dam returning via Farm Creek.  Andy and Heather relaxed in the lodge.

Wednesday was to be the day that Andy and Adrian ran from Guthega to Blue Lake while Ella and  I drove around to Charlotte's Pass and walked to Blue Lake.  The boys aborted the run as Andy hadn't recovered from the previous days gastro bug.  Instead we all decided to walk to Blue Lake from Charlotte's Pass - about a 10km round trip.

The wether had closed in so we packed in our warm jumpers and rainjackets. With Ella in the backpack we headed off.  The first 1km was a steep descent down to the Snowy River which we crossed via the stepping stones without falling in.  The next 3km was a slow uphill climb.  Just after 2.5km we donned the raincoats as the mist was quite wet and at about 3.5km we had to negotiate a snow drift which crossed the track.  

When we made it to Blue Lake lookout, the rain was gently falling and the mist had set in - in fact we couldn't see Blue Lake!!!  We decided not to venture down the last km and turned back for home. Ella had gone quiet by this point - I think despite being tucked away in her little rainproof backpack she was cold.  The return journey was slightly faster - with Ella drifting off to sleep. 

As Andy was feeling stronger, the boys discussed the possibility of running to Kosciuszko from Charlotte's Pass early the next morning.  It's an 18km return trip which they thought they could do in about 1.45 hours.  We were woken the next morning to the sound of rain however this didn't deter the boys and off they went - thermals and rainjackets on. Crazy stuff I thought tucked up in my warm bed....Unfortunately they didn't make it to the top - something about the bad weather and lack of oxygen (is that right cuz?).

We packed up and cleaned the lodge managing to leave Guthega by 11am for the trip home.  Stopped off at Bredbo at the Organic Cafe for lunch - which got the tick of approval by the coffee police (aka Andy).

Thursday night Heather and Adrian treated us to dinner at The Ridge. Located at the Farrer shops, this organic restaurant was sure worth the long trek. Delicious!

 While I dropped Ella off to childcare and went to work on Friday morning, Andy and Adrian played some golf, before squeezing in breakky and coffee at ANI, before catching their plane to Sydney. A perfect way to finish a perfect visit (except for the weather!)