Wednesday 27 July 2016

June Catch Up - Let it Snow, Let it Snow, Let it Snow

Towards the end of June a rather cold blast of weather came through our area and snow was forecast as low as 600m.  That's Bathurst's elevation.

On the Friday afternoon, one of the girls looked out the window at work and it was actually snowing in town.  As you can imagine, there was more gawping than work happening for a short while.....and then the snow stopped.

If it snowed in town, which is rare, it definitely snowed on the surrounding higher areas.........We were meant to travel to Sydney for the day on Saturday.  We'd have to see in the morning if we would be able to get through, or if the roads were cut.

Yep, the highway to Sydney was closed by morning, as was the road to Oberon.  There was no mention of the road through Tarana to Lithgow, so we decided we would give it a try.  We had nothing else planned and the worst that could happen was we would have to turn around to come home.

Once we got past O'Connell we were starting to see more snow.  Best of all, as we had time, Mick actually stopped and let me hop out of the car to take photos.....so long as I was quick.  Here goes:


Our first decent view of the snow. The sun had come out, so everything looked an absolute picture.


The Fish River.


Look at that!


At Sodwalls, snow now on the sides of the road.


Ain't that purdy!


Do you think I may have been enjoying all this. Do you also notice that there were absolutely no problems with the roads we travelled.  I suppose this road goes around behind the highest parts of the Great Western Highway, being Yetholme and Mt Lambie.


You can't see it all that clearly, but there was snow on the roofs of the houses in Lithgow.


We travelled down the Bells Line of Road.  Once we topped Scenic Hill it was rather lovely.


We were amazed to see that there was still snow on the road near the Zig Zag Railway.  Rather icy and slippery here.

The road cleared the further east we went.  It was nice to see people playing in the snow in front of the Mt Tomah Botanic Gardens, and then it was gone.

We did what we had to in Sydney and travelled home via the Great Western Highway.  It had been a rather balmy day in Sydney, but as we travelled home it got progressively colder, getting down to zero by the time we reached Bell at about 6 o'clock.  When we went through Yetholme we were astounded that the road still had snow and ice on it, similar to what had been on the road near the Zig Zag Railway.  We can understand why the highway had been closed in the morning and were glad we had such a picturesque trip down.

3 comments:

Jenny said...

A little snow always seems so beautiful. And up on the hill tops and mountains, glistening in the sun shine. But I imagine that if you had to live with heavy snowfall on the roads all winter, it wouldn't be quite so much fun.
We don't get snow on the ground here where we live, but I love to see it on the back hills.

Rachaeldaisy said...

Beautiful photos!! Snow is so picturesque, its just a shame it's so cold, brrr. I'm glad you travelled safely.

Anita said...

Looks so pretty with the snow!