Escaping the press gallery lows to revel in the high life

The Snowy River sits cold and trapped against a dam wall below us, the last wild run of it spent. Each year for the past 17 years we have come bringing food and wine and benevolence, leaving the familiar world and all its parts in the lowlands. Most years we came in winter, stamping on skis, wearing ourselves out on the slopes before vespers at the pub. Whoever coined the name Snowy Mountains knew what they were talking about. Some years we trudged to our lodgings towing luggage-heavy sleds through blizzards, and spent hours digging cars out of snow drifts before we could leave.