Click on the image for a larger map if required (800x600px)
Canberra-Thredbo: The blue section
This is pretty self explanatory, although for those that don't know this road, on the Canberra side of Cooma there is a 4km straight piece of road that you can see from one end to the other and requires much self control. Needless to say the rest of the drive does get a little more interesting after Jindabyne, but in reality, it's Camry Sunday drive material compared to what lies ahead. Or Falcon Sunday drive as the case was yesterday!
Thredbo-Khancoban: The green section
Wow! I've not driven every
great piece of road in Australia, but I'm here to tell you that this
has to be right up there with the best. Definitely the highlight of the day for me, by a long, long way. The road is not as intense as we found the drive up to Mt Hotham. In a sense you can relax on this road. No, perhaps a better way to explain it is, that you can ease yourself into the groove, or the zone, a bit more easily than Mt Hotham which demands maximum driving effort right from the first corner. The drive to Khancoban really is great, the road surface is oh so smooth and it teases you with every oncoming corner, tantalising you with what comes next. It's almost like the road is begging to be driven hard. There are no road markings however and the road is not exactly wide. Although, a large oncoming 4WD/caravan combo poses no problems. Well, assuming you're on your side of the road that is! And you must expect oncoming traffic, so keep left if you can't see around the corner. That's common sense really, but sometimes it pays to get a reminder. Developing on the common sense theme, I was leading and was amazed that
every single car I caught up to on this section of road pulled over within one minute easily if there was not a safe overtaking opportunity. Props to those drivers letting us all enjoy the drive.
I drove most of this road in 3rd and 4th gear with quite a lot of tight-ish corners taken in 2nd and at times there were some nice straights allowing you to open up 5th for just a moment or two. Actually one tip, some of the tighter corners have nothing other than a simple corner advisory sign, no speed guide, and this on some of the tighter corners of the road. I found I was at times braking more than necessary. Of course, on a public road discretion is nearly always the better part of valour. But I reckon I'd knock back Kylie for a free hit on a closed road from Thredbo to Khancoban. Yes, it's
that good! Oh, the scenery is stunning and you almost need to drive the road twice, once to rubber neck, and once purely for the driving experience. More on that* later.
Khancoban-Kiandra: The orange section
This route takes you off the Alpine Way and the start of this road is a bit of a let down after what had just been. But really, it's still pretty damn good. Indeed, the closer you get to Cabramurra the more this road becomes the equal of the Thredbo-Khancoban sector. Well, that's if you don't encounter silly Falcon drivers.
As mentioned earlier we caught a blue XR8 Falcon. I'm not sure if he was trying to keep us at bay or not, but for the time I was behind him I was mainly in 3rd with one hand on the wheel checking out the scenery. (Don't try this at home!) We were behing him for some time and the road was a bit narrower than the Alpine Way, and not quite as smooth (that's splitting hairs though). Anyway, as there were not really any passing opportunities I figured I'd pull over and get the guys to wait a few minutes. Just as I thought that a relatively nice straight piece of road presented itself and indicator on, plenty of warning, and off I went ... or so I thought. This guys sticks his arm out the window, but in quite an ambiguous way, was he waving me past, or was telling me to stop? Well, what was not ambiguous was his steering! I was about level with his b-pillar when he basically started forcing me off the road. So, I figured I'd better abort this passing manouvre pretty quickly. Rather than getting all p!s-sed off with him I thought the pull over and wait plan was the better choice. No harm done, thankfully.
A bit later on after passing some other cars I caught another Falcon driver. This time a regular old Forte or somesuch. And I'm pretty sure this guy was trying to keep me at bay. Close, but no cigar! I found myself approaching a nice twisty uphill section where I could see a good 500m+ ahead and I thought to myself, there's no way I'm missing out on this. So, with nobody in sight behind me I basically just stopped in the middle of the road and waited until the Falcon was out of sight. Then I gunned it up the hill with a huge grin on my dial complimenting myself on my decision to award myself a stop/go penalty! Caught up to the Falcon guy again and thought I'd basically follow the same procedure. However, he got the hint and pulled aside allowing me a safe passage past. Thanks again. At least he didn't dig his head in the sand like the previous Falcon nutter.
The best part of this road is the descent to the Tumut Dam (forget it's proper name, buit it's where the three of us parked in the pics I posted above). And the descent is only the best bit because its the part before the ascent, which is totally sublime. Stunning scenery. Once you get past Cabramurra the landscape takes on more of a desert like appearance. In that the treed foliage is replaced by windswept moors with groundcover and rocks. Great for seeing the road ahead! We got to some tasty looking open sweepers just before you turn onto the Snowy Mountains Hwy and we were stuck behind some slower cars. Don't you hate that! Like we were in a position to complain though after what we had just driven.
Kiandra-Cooma: The purple section
If you're like me you'll really appreciate the barren landscape. Dartmoor in England, the red centre of Australia, nothing for pretty much as far as the eye can see except the harsh realities of the surrounding environment. I love it. But thankfully there's also some lovely sweeping bends, but nothing at all below 4th/5th gear for most of the drive. There's a few tighter sections that require 3rd, but that's about it. In some ways this just the tonic though, almost like coming down! Still the odd section to keep your pulse racing, but not enough to stop you from letting the adrenalin down easily.
After Adamniaby the road straightens out even more to the point that it's really just your average bit of country highway. But there was still time for one more Falcon experience! We managed to catch two Falcons, in front a sedan, behind a wagon. We were in a bit of double lined corners so no overtaking. Soon enogh a nice opportunity to pass presented and the wagon went first, there was plenty of room for me so I followed his lead. I wasn't sure at what pace he would be driving at but by this time we were cruising any way. However, after passing the other car we came to a downhill section of curves that he should have taken slower and I could have taken quicker. His tail was getting very loose and was braking very deep in corners. Best to sit back, relax and enjoy the remaning 20-odd kms to Cooma I figured.
So that was that! Excellent fun.
Oh, at Adamindaby this lady driving a clapped out old Suzuki 4WD that was painted in khaki camoflauge did the old "Oh I used to have a Cooper S" routine. But she was a real hoot, "yeah it was 1275 bored out to 1300. Had two sidedraft carbies poking in through the dash. We used to race Mustangs and I'd kill 'em on the corners, but they'd lose us on the straights. I was running race pistons and big brakes. But we got the fuel mixture wrong one day and cooked the engine!" Haha, she was great!
*So, back to the more on that later part about driving Thredbo-Khancoban twice. I had also driven the Tumut-Cooma section of the Snowy Mountains Highway in the past and that was great too. Probably not as rewarding as the Alpine Way, but fun nonetheless. Anyway, that's beside the point, what is clear is that there are more great roads here than one day can handle.
I was wondering if we could put aside a date some time into the future, say November/early December or something so that the snow is all gone and do a couple of nights there. On getting to Khancoban I would have loved to have turned around and driven the road again. What better idea then to stay somewhere for a night or two and do just that. Perhaps it could follow on from Eden and be an annual Pirates weekend away or something, hopefully with plenty of notice we could get 15+ cars along ... what say you???