Day 11 Friday 5th Tumut, Hydro Electric Apples!

This morning we ventured into the Mount Kosciuszko National Park to investigate a part of the Snowy Mountains Scheme and visit the Tumut 3 Power Station. Rob has always been very interested in the hydroelectric power and is currently following the progress of Snowy Hydro 2.0. I’ve always been interested in this area as I remember how lucky our family was, seeing the building of some of the first Hydro scheme in 1966. Dad was working at Tidbinbilla tracking satellites, that year and we lived in a caravan for a few months in Canberra. At the end of Dad’s tenure, we went on a family tour of the Snowy Mountains Scheme. The drive only took about 30 minutes but we stopped in at a small town of Talbingo because we thought there may have been some more information there. At the small shopping centre we met some locals who were out having coffee. They were very knowledgeable about the power station and filled us in on where we should go. We chatted to them for about 15minutes and then headed to the power station. We read all the information boards and visited other areas including the spillway and lookouts. Luckily we had magnificent weather for this and although there were warnings about snow and ice there was absolutely no sign of this. We returned to the caravan for lunch and then went for a short drive in the opposite direction to a small town called Batlow. This town is the centre for apple production and has a Cider Fest in May and an Apple Blossom Festival in Spring. We went for a walk around the town looking for apple products but alas could not find any then on the way home we struck gold, finding a road-side market stall. We called in and couldn’t believe that the small shed like building was full of produce and worked on an honesty system. Yes they had cameras but in this day and age, we were very impressed. Rob was hoping for an apple pie and in a glass-front fridge we found one. We purchased apples, oranges and the large apple pie and so spent a reasonable amount ($30). I couldn’t believe that there was a bucket…..yes a small plastic bucket to put the money in and obviously several other customers had used the service!