Road trip: Escape to the Snowy Mountains

Stuff your car with fly-fishing accoutrement and head towards Jindabyne to visit the Wild Brumby Distillery. If cosy fireplaces, stag horn chandeliers and red-cheeked skiers in beanies and fat jackets are your thing, then the Wild Brumby Distillery is a must. Enjoy a delicious smoked trout salad, while sampling their gold medal winning ‘Gindabyne’ elixir.

Take a leisurely snow-dappled drive to Cooma and the Snowy Hydro Discovery Centre. This state-of-the-art visitor centre showcases the amazing history of the Snowy Mountains Scheme; from the early days of construction to the present. It comprises an exhibition hall, photographs, models, hands-on exhibits and interactive displays. Kids can jump on the ‘power bikes’ and try to peddle hard enough to power their Xboxes.

Pay homage to Banjo Paterson at Cooma’s Centennial Park. A diminutive bronze statue, which is a tribute to the author of our unofficial national anthem.

Flutter from Birdsnest and head through the Kosciuszko National Park, with its snow-laden gums, pretty wildflowers and limestone gorges. In keeping with the Banjo Paterson theme, road signs warn of wild brumbies drifting across the highway. Continue onto Adaminaby where you’ll be greeted by a statue of a big trout. The town’s extraordinary relocation was the subject of the 1958 film Operation Adaminaby. In 1930, an 18-year-old Patrick White jackarooed near here and later wrote his famous debut novel Happy Valley, which was based on some of his experiences.

Adaminaby’s Snowy Scheme Museum is a multi-dimensional insight into the impact on the nation of the construction of the Snowy Mountains Hydro-electric Scheme, highlighting achievements of the engineers, the workers, the machinery and the role the project played in the development of the modern Australian nation. The Snowy Scheme is widely considered to be the greatest engineering project ever undertaken in Australia.

Drive to the birthplace of Miles Franklin, seminal writer and feminist. She’s best known for her novel My Brilliant Career but was also committed to the development of a uniquely Australian form of literature. Franklin supported writers, literary journals and writers’ organisations, and her endowment of a major annual prize for literature is the eponymous Miles Franklin Award before heading to Tumut.

Make a beeline for the charming local Tumut & District Historical Society Museum to see Franklin’s dresses and other fascinating Franklin artefacts, including a room of Franklin-prize-winning authors’ tomes.

No, seriously, the broom factory is fascinating and it’s the last original millet broom factory in Australia. Watch staff in action making a straw broom in the factory in the same way since 1946.