Thredbo music

January continues to be the month of music for us. We have been heading up to the Snowy Mountains for years now in January for walking, eating and drinking weekends with friends. The last two years we've also signed up for the Blues Festival program in Thredbo, so we can add three days of some of Australia's finest Blues performances to the mix. 

There were eight of us this year - the usual crew + Fiona, James and young William from Melbourne. We had wonderful accommodation this year - the Snowgoose Apartments, overlooking the village square, and with great views of the spectacular alpine mountains and clear blue skyscape surrounding Thredbo village.

As always the best part of the long weekend is the time we spend together..laughing, walking, far ranging conversations and too much cheese and alcohol (especially James' signature G & Ts with pomegranate and lime).

Young Will coped well with all the oldies and remained cheerful and charming company the whole weekend. He expressed some amazement at the amount of cheese eaten and seemed to find the G&T fuelled conversation quite amusing at times.  I hope we didn't lose our credibility with Will as a consequence...but his behaviour was exemplary (in contrast to ours) - and we all adored him!

The Blues Festival crowd is a very mixed one - lots of regular folks like us - lots of wild men and women too (of a certain age!) and some young ones too. We met up with some younger friends in the village on Sunday afternoon, enjoying the laid back vibe just like we were. I hadn't seen young Yasmin for  few months but she greeted me like a long lost friend in Thredbo!

The Blues festival is three days of music too - from 11.00 in the morning to well after midnight each night. Highlights for me were the Foreday Riders, Shane Pacey, The band performing the Janis Joplin tribute, Brody Young, George Washingmachine, the Hip Replacements(!!??) and Russel Morris. The venues were really varied; some were good, some were terrible. They were all really crowded.

By Sunday afternoon we were ready for the relaxed vibe of the smaller outdoor venues (and the boys really liked the $5 beers on tap that went with it).

We managed to fit in a chair lift ride every day (included in our festival pass!); the novelty of this never wears off no matter how many times we do it - and the German beers available at Eagles Nest (The highest altitude cafe in Australia) at the top of the chair lift, is another attraction of the ride!

We only tackled a short mountain walk this year, the 4 and 1/2 klm walk (but 9 klm return) from Eagles Nest to Rawson Pass, just below the peak of Mt Kosciuszko. Still a perfect opportunity to reconnect with this beautiful  and pristine alpine landscape.

Taken from the Cootapatamba Lookout............ the "camouflage" view

and the "blue sky" view.

We're so close to the highest peaks in the Alps we think this might just be where the Snowy River is starting to form.....

Before we left Thredbo this morning we booked our accommodation for the 2017 Festival weekend!