After the beautiful camp the night before, we don't go far this time - maybe half an hour up the road to find another small camp. I'm a little freaked out, because I don't like sitting still, but I also know it's a good idea - sometimes staying still is part of being on the road too. Engines need resting, both heart shaped ones and engine shaped ones.

Besides, we have chance to have a shower. When you get a chance to camp by fresh water, it's a great opportunity to use the river water, heated up by the coals, and use our lithim powered shower pump to pump the water and wash all the road dirt away. It feels nice - luxurious, really.

In the morning, we continue driving along to Jindabyne early - spotting deer crossing the road and, when we stopped, hearing lyrebirds which mimic other birds like kookaburras and magpies. We pass no one else but a grader and a roller that is levellig off the road, likely ready for the easter holidays coming up.

The Barry Way isn't for everyone though. The Snowy River valley has served as an important travel route for thousands of years - starting with our first people of coure, who used it as a major route to and from the high country to the see, gathering in their ancestral lands each summer. From the 1830's, explorers and graziers - often guided by Aboriginal people - followed the same route. It is named after Leo Barry OBE, whoever he was.

I forgot how big this national park is. The Wallace Craigie Lookout at the top of Kosciuszko National Park reminds me, with it's breathtaking views over the lower Snowy River valley. I didn't realise it was within a UNESCO Biosphere Reserve. Over half of the park—more than 350,000 hectares—has been declared wilderness. In the summer of 2003, this region was devastated by a major firestorm when two fires, driven by strong winds, collided and created an intense pyrocumulus thunderstorm. raging through the wilderness and hitting the Victoria border in one day - 100,000 acres just gone. Since then, biodiversity has been found to return largely intact - even native animals like the spotted tail quoll have thrived. This shows how resilient this wilderness is to fire, but the problem is, it has to have chance to recover.

The lookout has a few signs which tell us some details about the area. I love the one about the story of the Snowy River’s journey from the mountains to the sea - it begins at Mt Kosciuszko and flows 500 kilometers to its end. An Aboriginal creation story describes how a platypus followed the moon, which was bringing seawater to the mountains. The platypus pierced the moon’s water carrier (it's not clear how), and the gushing water formed the Snowy River. I can imagine the river in the moonlight, sparkling silver.

While the river is really wide in some places, the flow of it has been disrupted by dams such as the one at Jindabyne - part of the Snowy Mountains Scheme which supplies electricity to Canberra, Victoria and New South Wales. We meet a guy in a troopy that works for Snowy 2.0 - he's on over 150K for driving a bloody grader or something. To think we teach for less that that!

The region around the lookout is also notable for its unique vegetation, including white cypress pines and narrow-leaved box which love the valley’s low rainfall and elevation. It's all rather spectacular. It does eventually give way to farmland - cows and goats, rusting buses and tin sheds, before hitting the town of Jindabyne.

By the lake, we stop for breakfast and a coffee. Jindabyne is a popular base for exploring nearby ski resorts. The lake itself was created as part of the the Snowy Mountains Hydro-Electric Scheme. There's lots of walks in the area and you can even hire bikes.

We stop for a look around the shops and to go to the supermarket for supplies, ready to go to Thredbo and our next camp. It's familiar territory - we have been here before now, and it's all too easy.