Holiday in the Snowy Mountains

Well here we are again at the Adventist Alpine Village at Jindabyne in the Snowy Mountains.  Of course being in Australia it is summer at the moment and it hasn't got cold enough for snow - though it often can do so.  And the long-range weather prediction was for cold weather so, in the 41degC heat we were experiencing in Sydney before we left, I was trying to pack warm clothes - it nearly did my head in choosing winter clothing when I had perspiration running down my face and dripping off my nose whenever I moved!  As it has turned out, I haven't needed much in the way of warm clothes after all.

We came away to the South New South Wales Conference Big Camp - our church has divided Australia up into nine areas called Conferences for administrative purposes.  We live in the Greater Sydney area, but that conference doesn't hold Camps any more so this is the second time we've attended South New South Wales (SNSW) Camp.  It is quite a small camp, only about 700 attending this year so there is plenty of chance to meet people from other churches and get to know them or to catch up again with people we've met before.

Add caption

This is a view of part of the campground from Round Hill, which is the hill that some of the campground is set on.  Our friend Richard took this photo when they climbed to the top of the hill one morning.  I haven't climbed it yet because I haven't done much walking this year  - been really lazy since I had surgery in December 2014.  I hope to climb up there before we leave though and you will probably hear my shouts of triumph when I do - that's if I have any breath left at all.  The altitude is affecting my breathing a bit.

Here is an overview of one side of the camp.  The large tent on the left is where all the adult meetings were held, the one on the right is the teen tent.  Tents for youth,  juniors, primary, kindergarten and cradle roll were in other places.

Closer view, showing the tennis court - our friends were camped on the left corner of the tennis court and we are third to the right of the tennis court.

In the paddock behind the tennis court there are alpacas, and often several little ponies.  If you continue  to the right down the road above you come to another paddock with a pond on it, and the next paddock has some horses.

And of course there are kangaroos - they come around the camp at night and one night I saw one hopping along near the big tent even while there were still several hundred people in there.  He stopped and looked in through the door as though curious about what was going on.  I wished I had had my phone with me that night to take a photo but it was probably too dark.

It's quite a steep climb to the lodge where they have meals.  We bought lunch each day so I had some  good exercise climbing that hill each day.  Here is a view looking at the main lodge complex from the road (photos from the internet) and I've already showed you photos of inside that complex a couple of years ago.

Front of main lodge, central section

Lodge showing dining room and kitchen on left of main section

The lodge has three stories, with dining room, kitchen, office, lounge and a multi-purpose room on the ground floor, a large lounge/conference room on the first floor and a small prayer room on the third floor.  That's where the youth hang out during camp - it sounds good to say to their parents 'we're going to the prayer room' but it is really a hang-out spot for them ;)

To the right of the central area is a long line of dormitary-type rooms, and a camp kitchen at the end.  There are also some chalets on the rise overlooking the camp area in the photos above.  Here are some of them.

We arrived on Friday 15th January and set up in time for the evening meal and opening Sabbath meeting.  Sabbath was an enjoyable day with two Pastors being ordained in the afternoon, then a social evening that night.

On Sunday it was Village Fun Fair time and down on the village square as it is called, were numerous booths or tents set up with lots to do.  There was an especially long line at the place where you could throw tennis balls at a mark set on a wire background and if it hit hard enough a bucket of icy water was tipped onto the volunteer sitting on the chair below.  The long line was composed of people who wanted to be dunked as well as those who wanted to try and dunk them :)

Our son Nathan and I tried on some of the props at the photography tent and our friend took some photos of us, we didn't have the photographer take them because there was a line-up for that too, though the official photographer who was taking shots for the Conference news magazine took some too.

What about this hat Nathan?

The glasses add a nice touch

These glasses are hard to keep on your nose!

 We also had a couple of goes on the hay-ride, which was fun especially when the trailer went over the rocks on the side of the narrow track.

there was a tent there selling the most delicious ice-creams, milkshakes and spiders for a very low sum and huge slices of watermelon for a song too.  The watermelon was grown organically just down the road and it was one of the nicest I've had this season.

After the day of activities we all found we were sunburned despite putting on sunscreen.  The altitude here makes it much easier to get burned, apparently.

The week following was full of meetings, socializing and enjoyment.  We bought lunch each day and enjoyed the delicious food - so nice not to have to  cook your main meal for the day.  Then we just had something light for teatime.

We are staying on here after Camp finishes, to have a bit of a holiday.  I am hoping to do some walking around the area to see it in the summertime.  We've visited the snowfields during winter, years ago, but of course things look so different when they are bare of snow.