Apartment lodges among snow gum forest on a hillside above low heath, under a deep blue sky

Sydney, New South Wales & the ACT, Australia

Thredbo

Thredbo village on the hillside above the Thredbo River in Kosciuszko National Park, New South Wales. (Ymblanter / Wikimedia Commons · CC BY-SA 4.0)

An alpine village in the Snowy Mountains of New South Wales, set beside the Thredbo River inside Kosciuszko National Park at about 1,370 metres. Founded as a ski resort in 1957, it has the longest ski runs in Australia when the mountain is fully covered, and in summer a chairlift carries walkers towards the summit of Mount Kosciuszko.

Neighbourhoods

  • The village centre
    • First-time visitors
    • Best for food
    • Close to the lifts

    A cluster of lodges, apartments, bars and shops around the village square, beside the valley terminal where the main chairlift begins. Almost everything in Thredbo is within a few minutes of it, though the ground is steep and connected by stairs and ramps.

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  • Friday Flat
    • Families
    • Beginners
    • Quiet and residential

    The flatter western end of the village, where the beginners' slopes and the ski school are, with its own lift, car park and a few lodges. It is a short shuttle ride or walk from the centre and quieter in the evening.

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  • The hillside lodges
    • Quiet and residential
    • Views

    Lanes of lodges and apartment blocks climbing the slope above the road, many of them owned by ski clubs and let to members and visitors. They look out over the valley, and the walk back up from the square is a steep one.

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Things to do

On the mountain

  • Mount Kosciuszkoviewpoint

    At 2,228 metres the highest mountain on the Australian mainland, reached by a mesh walkway from the top of the Thredbo chairlift on a round trip of about three hours.

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  • Kosciuszko National Parkpark

    A national park of some 6,900 square kilometres covering the alpine high country, its glacial lakes, snow gum forests and the headwaters of the Snowy and Murray rivers.

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Short trips from the village

  • Charlotte Passattraction

    A small, high ski village at the end of the road above Perisher, and the start of the older summit route along the closed road to Kosciuszko.

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  • Perisher Ski Resortattraction

    The largest ski resort in the southern hemisphere, an amalgamation of four villages and their ski fields on the other side of the range from Thredbo.

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  • Skitube Alpine Railwaytransit hub

    Australia's only underground rack railway, opened from Bullocks Flat on the Alpine Way to Perisher in 1987 and extended through to Blue Cow the following year.

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  • Jindabyneattraction

    The lakeside town about 35 kilometres down the Alpine Way, rebuilt in the 1960s when its original site was flooded, and the service centre for the whole snowfields area.

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  • Coomaattraction

    The main town of the Monaro plains, headquarters of the Snowy Mountains hydro-electric scheme and home to a memorial to the many nationalities who built it.

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Seasonal events

  • Opening of the snow seasonJune

    The Australian ski season traditionally opens on the June long weekend, when the village fills whatever the snow is doing and the lifts start turning.

  • Thredbo Blues Festivalsummer

    A long-running festival of blues and roots music played across the village's bars, hotels and outdoor stages in the middle of summer.

  • Cannonball mountain bike festivalsummer

    A gravity mountain-biking festival on the downhill trails that run beneath the chairlifts, with racing, jumps and crowds along the course.

Eat and drink

Long-standing places and food districts in Thredbo. Hours, ratings and directions come from your maps app, always current.

Thredbo classics

  • Eagles Nestrestaurant

    The building at the top of the Kosciuszko Express chairlift, close to 1,900 metres and among the highest places to eat in Australia, with views across the range.

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Cafés and bars in the village

  • The village squareneighborhood

    Cafés, bakeries, burger places and bars packed into a few levels around the square, busy from early morning in the snow season and quieter in the shoulder months.

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Shopping and eating nearby

  • Jindabyneneighborhood

    The nearest town for supermarkets, bakeries, pubs and takeaways, where most self-catering visitors do their shopping before driving up the valley.

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Experience Thredbo

History

The Snowy Mountains are the country of the Ngarigo people, who moved into the high country in the warmer months, and neighbouring groups joined them for gatherings at which bogong moths, which shelter in the summit rocks in huge numbers, were a seasonal food. From the 1830s graziers drove cattle and sheep up to the summer pastures, leaving a legacy of mountain huts scattered across the high country.

Skiing came late to this valley. The high country around Kiandra had seen skiing since the 1860s, but the Thredbo valley was remote until the Snowy Mountains hydro-electric scheme, begun in 1949, cut roads through the range and brought thousands of European workers who were keen skiers. In 1957 a syndicate of people working on the scheme was granted a head-lease over the valley and began building a village at the foot of the north-facing slopes, choosing the site for its long fall of ground. Lifts, lodges and the Alpine Way grew together, and Kosciusko State Park, declared in 1944, became Kosciuszko National Park in 1967.

Thredbo developed into the resort with the longest ski runs in the country, and from the 1980s into a summer destination as well, with the chairlift used by walkers heading for Mount Kosciuszko. On the night of 30 July 1997 a landslide swept away two lodges above the road, killing 18 people; one man, Stuart Diver, was pulled out alive after more than 60 hours. The village, which lies inside a national park and is run under a single long lease, has been rebuilt and expanded within tight limits ever since.

Culture & Customs

Thredbo runs on two cultures that barely meet. The winter village is a ski town in the Australian manner, where a great deal depends on snow that is never guaranteed, and conversation turns on cover, snowmaking and whether the season will hold. Much of the accommodation belongs to ski clubs whose members have come for generations, and their lodges, with shared kitchens and rosters, give the place a communal feel that resorts built on hotels do not have.

In summer the same slopes carry mountain bikers down trails beneath the chairlifts, and the village fills with walkers and families. Music is part of the calendar, with a blues festival in January and events through the season, and the bars run late while the lifts are running. Seasonal workers from Australia, Europe, Japan and South America come for one winter and sometimes stay for several, which gives the place an accent of its own.

Beyond the resort lies the older culture of the Monaro high country, of stock horses, huts and the poetry of Banjo Paterson, still celebrated in the towns below. Aboriginal connection to the mountains is acknowledged in the park's management and interpretation, and the fragility of the alpine environment shapes local manners: people stay on the tracks, carry rubbish out and treat the herbfields above the treeline as something not to be walked on.

Daily Life

Only a few hundred people live in Thredbo all year, and the number in the valley multiplies many times over on a July weekend. There is no school and no hospital: families with children generally live in Jindabyne, 35 kilometres down the Alpine Way, and that is also where the supermarkets, the high school and most services are. A medical service operates in the village through the snow season, when injuries are frequent.

Almost every job is tied to the mountain — lift operators, snowmakers, ski patrol, instructors, kitchen and housekeeping staff, trades and maintenance — and a large share of it is seasonal, filled by young Australians and working holidaymakers. Staff housing is tight, and rents in Jindabyne have risen with demand. Because the village sits inside a national park, everything from water and waste to new building is regulated closely, and it cannot simply expand when demand does.

The rhythm of the day follows the lifts in winter and the light in summer. Snow clearing starts before dawn, the village is busiest at the beginning and end of the skiing day, and the shoulder months in May and November are very quiet. The long-term worry is climate: Australian snow seasons have been shortening and becoming less reliable, snowmaking now underpins the winter, and the resort has put more effort into its summer business as a result.

Food

Eating in Thredbo is mountain food shaped by the ski trade. Pub meals, burgers, pizza and pasta dominate, with schnitzel, raclette and fondue appearing on winter menus in the European alpine manner that the Snowy scheme's migrant workers helped establish in these mountains. Hot chocolate, mulled wine and a beer at the end of the day are as much part of the season as the snow, and bakeries sell meat pies and sausage rolls to eat standing in ski boots.

The village square holds cafés serving the flat whites and long blacks that Australians expect anywhere, and breakfast is a serious business before the lifts open. Eating at altitude is part of the appeal, with a restaurant at the top of the main chairlift close to 1,900 metres. In summer the same kitchens feed walkers and cyclists, with lighter menus and long afternoons in beer gardens.

Local produce comes from the valleys below rather than the mountain. Trout, introduced to the Snowy rivers and Lake Jindabyne, is the regional fish and appears smoked and fresh; Monaro lamb and beef graze the plains around Cooma; and the cool-climate vineyards at Tumbarumba, on the far side of the range, make sparkling wine, chardonnay and pinot noir. Most self-catering visitors shop in Jindabyne, since the village store is small and stocked for convenience.

Planning tools

Budget

Thredbo is expensive in winter and much cheaper the rest of the year. Lodge and apartment rates roughly double or triple between June and September, minimum stays are common, and a lift pass, hire gear and lessons are the largest single costs of a ski trip. Every vehicle entering Kosciuszko National Park pays a daily fee. In summer the walking tracks, the village and the valley cost nothing beyond that fee and the chairlift.

Daily Budget Midrange
USD 200–350 (village apartment or lodge room, restaurant meals, a lift pass or chairlift ticket, a hire car)
Daily Budget Shoestring
USD 90–150 (bunk in a club lodge or a bed in Jindabyne, self-catering, park entry, walking rather than lifts)

Book winter accommodation months ahead and compare staying in Jindabyne with staying in the village; multi-day lift passes and gear hire booked in advance cost less than at the window.

Best Time to Visit

Two separate seasons. Snow cover is most reliable from late June to early September, with the school holidays in July the busiest weeks of the year. December to March is the walking and mountain-biking season, when the alpine wildflowers come out, the days are long and mild and prices fall. Late autumn and late spring are quiet, cold and wet, with many businesses on reduced hours.

Suggested Number of Days

Two or three days suit a first stay, in snow or in summer. Four or five allow the wider high country and the lake and plains below the range. Weather governs everything here, and a day lost to storm or closed lifts is common enough to plan for.

First Visit
2–3 days
With Surroundings
4–5 days

Transportation

Most visitors drive up the Alpine Way from Jindabyne, and a car is the simplest way to reach the village. Coaches run from Sydney and Canberra in the snow season, and transfers meet flights at Cooma. Inside the village a free shuttle bus loops between the car parks, Friday Flat and the square in winter. The lifts themselves work as transport on the mountain, and Perisher is reached either over the range by road or by the Skitube from Bullocks Flat.

Snow chains must be carried in the park during the declared snow season, and hired with the car if it is not four-wheel drive; day visitors park in the numbered car parks at the village entrance.

Airport & Station Connections

There is no airport in the village. Cooma, the nearest town with an airport, has seasonal flights from Sydney, and in the snow season those flights are met by shuttles to Jindabyne, Thredbo and the Skitube at Bullocks Flat. Canberra Airport is about three hours by road, and Sydney about 500 kilometres and six hours. The final stretch is the Alpine Way from Jindabyne, some 35 kilometres of mountain road that is snow-cleared in winter but can close briefly in storms.

Walkability

The village is small enough to cross on foot in fifteen minutes, but it is built on a steep slope, and moving between the square, the lodges above and Friday Flat means stairs, ramps and gradients, which are hard work with ski boots, luggage or a pram. Paths are cleared of snow in winter and can still be icy. A sealed shared path follows the river along the valley floor.

Safety

The village itself is quiet and safe. The real risks are alpine. Weather changes within an hour, and the exposed walk to Mount Kosciuszko can turn from warm sunshine to cold rain, wind or snow in any month, with hypothermia the usual cause of trouble. Ultraviolet levels are high at altitude, snow and ice injuries are common on the slopes, and mobile coverage fails in the valleys. In 1997 a landslide destroyed two lodges in the village, killing 18 people, and the slopes above the road have since been extensively stabilised and monitored.

Carry warm and waterproof layers, water and a map on any walk above the chairlift even on a clear summer morning, tell someone the route, check the resort and park websites for closures, and keep to the raised walkway to protect the alpine plants. Check current official travel advice before travelling.

Climate

An alpine climate, the coldest inhabited part of Australia along with the neighbouring resorts, with snow lying for months on the higher ground and frost possible in any season. Rain and snow fall through the year, and conditions differ sharply between the valley floor and the tops. Seasons are reversed from the northern hemisphere, so summer runs from December to February and winter from June to August.

Summer
cool and changeable — village days typically 17–24°C, colder and windier on the summits, with nights that can drop close to freezing
Winter
cold and snowy — village days around 0–5°C with nights well below freezing, and snow cover on the upper slopes usually from late June to September

Local Customs

Dress is practical rather than smart, and ski or snow gear is normal everywhere in winter. Tipping is not expected. Alcohol is served in licensed bars and hotels, and the village is patrolled at night in the busy season because it is a small place with a lot of visitors in it. The Snowy Mountains are the country of the Ngarigo people, and the high country carries cultural significance as well as being an extremely fragile environment.

Stay on marked tracks and the metal walkway above the treeline, take all rubbish out, leave dogs at home because they are not allowed in the national park, and give way to skiers below on the slopes.

Common Payment Methods

The currency is the Australian dollar. Cards and contactless payment work throughout the village, lift passes and hire are sold online and at counters, and many venues do not handle cash at all. There is an ATM in the village, but it is worth drawing cash in Jindabyne if any is needed.