Climbing Mount Kosciuszko – The Roof Of Australia

Everything you need to know about climbing Mount Kosciuszko in the Snowy Mountains.

There’s something about summiting the world’s tallest mountains that stirs the adventurer hidden inside of us. The idea of climbing Mount Everest, Mont Blanc and Aconcagua has been attracting explorers and mountaineers for decades.

However when it comes to the Mount Kosciuszko summit walk, Australia’s highest mountain at 2228m, it is not quite so intrepid. But that doesn’t mean it’s not worth doing!

Having unexpectedly returned to travelling in Australia for two months, we started to get itchy feet and decided it was time to hit the road in our own country.

As we spend most of our time overseas, this is something that we hadn’t really done on the East Coast. So we sorted out a rental car with Economy Bookings and headed off on a New South Wales road trip.

Our first direction was to head south for some hiking in Kosciuszko National Park.

After an incredible drive down the coast, and a fantastic night camping in a small town called Gundaroo outside Canberra, we arrived in the mountain resort town of Jindabyne on our second afternoon.

We had no plans, no idea where to stay and no clue of what to do in Kosciuszko National Park. A quick stop off at the visitors centre gave us all the information we needed, and we decided that we would spend the next day tackling the 22km Main Range Track.

With the end result of tackling the Mount Kosciuszko walk and standing on the roof of Australia, there was no way we were going to miss this opportunity!

It was a beautiful afternoon, so we hung out around Jindabyne for a few more hours before moving into the Mt Kosciuszko National Park.

After handing over the $17 for 24 hours access to Mount Kosciuszko National Park (the most expensive in the country), we immediately felt the price was justified as we drove through the dense forest and rolling valleys that make up the alpine landscape of the Snowy Mountains.

Even though the entrance fee is expensive, one added benefit is that there are plenty of free camping spots all over the place.

We pulled into Island Bend Campsite and were stoked to see that we were the only ones there (besides the dozens of kangaroos that hopped around the grounds).

The moment we set up the tent a…