Snowy Mountains Highway or Alpine Way

Anyone travel these roads recently? I am planning a trip up there and just after info on condition, approx travel times etc.

Pete, one thing to consider is a sign in Cooma about towing vans & trucks on the Vic side of Thredbo. We towed our van through Selwin snow fields to Tumbarumba. Steep in places but did it in a day from Batemans Bay. We went that way so we could be on the Sth side of the Hume Dam full of water. We crossed the border at Jingellic. Dave

Am going in a car. Google maps tells me 2 and half hours for 190kms between Corryong and Cooma but I dont know how accurate that is.

I am trying to remember, but I only ever go through in ski season. The road is surfaced throughout now, and we virtually never have to fit chains. Steepness isn't a problem, but curvature is.
Our normal times: Tallangatta - Thredbo & vv, 3 h.
Add 30 min to Jindabyne, and an hour to Cooma.
Do take time to call in at Scammells lookout: close to the main road, with good interpretive panels, and a stunning view which most Australians don't realise we have.
There is also a side trip, several km, to a lookout which I have never visited.
Just out of Khancoban is another viewing point, for one of the power stations.

Around 1960, Ansett Pioneer ran a tourist bus through the route, when the road was dirt and corrugated beyond Khancoban. It was withdrawn by decree, for being unsafe.

If you are not in snow season, and are in a car: try the route through Cabramurra. There is an interesting SMH tunnel inspection available, but I have only ever done that road once (high summer).

Snowy Mountains Highway (ie via Tumut) is good, and has its own charms. I watched a RAAF Caribou on short takeoff/landing practice on a small strip jutting into one of the dams. Relocated Adaminaby township is also part of Australian history.

The other route to throw into planning is Barry Way: Bairnsdale via Buchan and Suggan Buggan. That was my regular skiing route for years, following Snowy River a lot of the time. It is very lonely.

Roderick B Smith
Rail News Victoria Editor

Thanks Rod, is the road via Cabramurra sealed ? Have traveled the Barry way many years back, certainly picturesque but didnt see another vehicle for a couple of hours.

Gday Pete.
Sounds like you're looking for the scenic route?

Was up that way at the start of the month on my bike.
Couple of ways to go.
Cross the river at Jingellic, on to Tumbarumba then up Elliots way to Kiandra. After that you are back on the Snowy Mountains Hwy.
Sealed all the way but a bit tight and windy up Elliot's with nutters coming the other way cutting corners.

Second option.
Cross river on the road to Khancoban. After the second cutting take the road to Cabramurra.
Don't take the first road marked as Cabramurra (like I did) as it will back track you across to Tumba again.
The raod up to Cabramurra is brilliant on a bike and would be an interesting drive in a car. Sealed all the way as well.

Haven't done Khancoban to Jindabyne in the past 18 months but friends I was with the other week went home that way and I didn't here of anyone coming off so I would say it is all sorted out after the big rains a few months back.

WE the club took a great trip thru the Barry way last year and some of it was dirt from about the Black Ranges to just before Jindabyne now thats a good way to go.

Another way is via Bombla thru to Cooma did this on a another truck trip . Dave

Might go via Cabramurra, looks like six of one and half a dozen of the other

It is quite simple: the group has nominated four routes, so you now have two holidays.

We could usually get the whole way from Buchan to Jindabyne without seeing any vehicle (but we would see wombats and grey kangaroos), but this was 21.00 to midnight. On one occasion, the road had been regraded, and the fine sand surface was a mud made slippery by rain. My friend felt unsafe driving my car, so I took over, and had slid off the road in just 500 m: luckily, into the gutter on the high side.
Within minutes, on this empty road, an antique truck pulled up, looking like something from a Ken Maynard cartoon (a kangaroo shooter). IIRC we didn't need his help to get out and continue, but is was such an eerie feeling: an incongruous vehicle, at an unlikely time.

Barry Way was completed in 1960: a two-state effort to link two otherwise dead-end roads by climbing over a saddle to link into a neighboring valley. I did photograph the completion plaque before it was stolen.

Bonang Hwy and Monaro Hwy to Bombala are tame by comparison, but still enjoyable drives. I don't know how much timber-industry trucking remains for viewing en route.

All the alpine routes are great: across Mt Skene, and the Nariel Upper road, and through Aberfeldy. Between the majors, there is also a set of 4wd only, which I have yet to tackle.

Roderick B Smith
Rail News Victoria Editor

It sounds like I need a month up there but will probably keep to the main roads this trip. Does that old railway line go up up to Corryong, is there much remaining evidence of this?