Hut maintenance in the Snowies

For four days on the Australia Day weekend I joined my outdoors club SPAN on a maintenance trip to Derschkos Hut in the Snowy Mountains. National Parks allow you to take in one 4WD vehicle when you're doing work on the hut, so one couple took in their camper, which meant we had the luxury of a fridge and a few other extras. It also meant we were able to mountain bike into the hut without having to carry any gear.
After sleeping in Cooma on Wednesday night we rode into the hut, near Cabramurra and Mount Jagungal. I've only done mountain biking once before, and was pleased with how well I did, but I was still pretty scared on the downhills because of all the loose rocks. The ride took about 1.5 hours, across undulating country after dropping off Round Mountain.

I was exhausted when we arrived, so didn't join the group that decided to ride to Mount Jagungal and walk to the top. Instead I stayed at the hut and helped start cleaning the walls. Our job for the weekend was to paint the internal walls. We got nearly all the cleaning finished that night, then spent the entire following day painting. We were really pleased with how good the hut looked after we finished, especially after National Parks reclad the hut last year and the Kosciusko Huts Assocation painted it. It looks nearly brand new. 

On Saturday we mountain biked to O'Keefes Hut, about 7.5km each way, which took us four hours altogether, then we tacked on another hour to ride to Bogong Creek. HUGE day. We had a bit of fun riding through creeks, and enjoyed checking out the newspapers from the 1930's that line the hut walls. O'Keefes burnt down in the big fires of 2002, then it was rebuilt (my father was one of the team) in 2009.

We celebrated our final night with a few beers that had been cooled in the creek, then packed up the next morning to ride out again. I'm glad the ride was only 1.5 hours because it was baking hot. The forecast had said we would be riding out in rain, but the only rain all weekend was on Thursday night - gorgeous.

To finish the weekend, we visited the thermal pool at Yarrangobilly Caves. It wasn't as good as I remembered, but the river alongside was amazing. Clean, refreshing and the perfect temperature. Who needs a warm pool on a hot day?