The Kosciuszko Ride

Day 1: Arrival

Yippee, your Kosciuszko adventure begins today! You’ll need to arrive at Wares Yards campground between 4 and 5pm so that you can meet your guides and crew, settle into your spacious safari tent, have a safety briefing, and enjoy some drinks and nibbles before nightfall. After the first of many mouthwatering dinners and desserts around the fire, sleep beckons.

Day 2: Gavels Ridge and Gavels Hut

Waking up to the sounds of birdsong and padding hooves, you’ll unzip your tent to find billy tea and coffee brewing by the fire and unhurried breakfast preparations underway. At 8am, the feast begins: cooked delights such as bacon and eggs, English muffins or omelettes alongside cereals, fresh bread and fruit. When everyone is fed, dressed, and has prepared their saddlebag lunch (either a wrap or a sandwich, plus tasty snacks!) you’ll get to know your trusty steed on the ground before mounting up for a brief ridden skill assessment in the safety of the campgrounds. Once everyone is comfortable, the ride begins in earnest. Travelling along Gavels Ridge, Brad, the lead guide, will point out the day’s route, which takes in Gavels Hut (your lunch spot – a weathered 1930s grazier’s hut), Nungar Plain (a vast alpine grassland where you’ll have chances to trot and canter) and ‘eagle’s nest’, a secluded area where you may even see your first brumbies!

After four to five hours in the saddle, the campsite will appear through the trees, smoke rising, wine and antipasto ready and waiting. If you like, you can wander down to the creek to spot kangaroos and wallabies, or if you’re really game, take a cold plunge in the icy water! Another scrumptious dinner will be whipped up tonight, to be savoured alongside stories from the bush, flaming red coals, and great company.

Day 3: Witzes Hut

Settling into the morning routine, you’ll wake up, defrost with a hot drink and a cooked breakfast, prepare your lunch and get ready to ride. The day’s route takes you over Blackfellows Ridge, a windswept hilltop with views over both Nungar Plain (where you rode yesterday) and Boggy Plain (which you’ll explore in the coming days).

Continuing the ascent, your agile horse will carry you up a natural staircase to a mountaintop overlooking the massive Tantangara Dam and Snowy Hydro Scheme. This vantage point gives you an unparalelled sense of the scope of these immense operations. Lunch and billy tea will be served back down on the plains at Witzes Hut. Kosciuszko’s tracks and huts are packed with history, and your guides know every story there is to tell. You’ll no doubt hear quite a few while munching sandwiches on this holiday! In the afternoon, you’ll ride back to camp along Nungar Creek.

Day 4: Schofields Trail

Heading back to Nungar Plain, you’ll take an entirely different track – Schofields Trail, to be precise – through forests of snow gum and mountain ash, over the creek and across the plain to Schofields Hut, your lunch stop. Once everyone is fed and rested, you’ll re-mount and ride further over the plain to reach a lookout, where you might spot Brumbies grazing in the distance.

Back at camp in the late afternoon, if you’re keen to keep exploring, your guides can take you for a drive to see more historical or modern-day points of interest.

Day 5: Boggy Plain

Today is a real trek; it will leave you with a great sense of accomplishment at the journey’s end. Forested slopes wind up, down and around before abruptly ending at the edge of Boggy Plain. Here the horses’ sure-footedness and your guides’ local knowledge comes to the fore: this notorious plain is an unsolvable riddle to all but a handful of people (and the Brumbies who call it home). The plains are also interspersed with dramatic, boulder-strewn hills reminiscent of the Scottish moors, with creeks carving wriggling paths between the slopes.

On the other side of Boggy Plain, you’ll ride into a beautiful, tall-sided valley, stopping for lunch and billy tea at one of the many sheltered, scenic spots en route. Travelling back towards camp over the hills, you’ll be dwarfed by tall, skinny eucalypts, emerging briefly at the opposite edge of Boggy Plain before navigating more challenging, forested slopes.

Day 6: Tantangara Mountain

The icing on the cake, today’s ride begins with a gradual climb to the summit of Tantangara Mountain. Having seen this peak at many points throughout the week, the satisfaction of finally surveying the vast wilderness of Kosciuszko National Park from Tantangara – 1700 metres above sea level – will be palpable. On a clear day, the view spans across the Monaro Plains, Kiandra Goldfields, the blue expanse of Lake Eucumbene, and Mount Kosciuszko itself.

Heading down the mountain towards the aptly named Wild Horse Plain, you’ll dismount for one last saddlebag-packed lunch on the grassy banks of Chance Creek. Finally, you’ll ride home along Alpine Creek Fire Trail, with chances to trot and canter on the way.

Day 7: Departure day

After one last filling breakfast, you’ll say goodbye to your wonderful horses, guides, crew, and newfound Globetrotting friends. On the drive home, you might like to visit local attractions such as Yarrangobilly Caves and thermal pool, the Snowy Hydro Works and Museum, and Old Adaminaby.