On Friday the 17th July last residents of my town awoke to see a mantle of snow draped across the landscape.  An extreme cold front had spread across the southern part of our State, New South Wales, bringing snow and strong winds to towns along the Great Dividing Range.

My town is on the south west slopes of the range and in the down town central business district the altitude is 690 metres above sea level, 2,264 feet for our non metric friends.

Where I live, just 4.5 klms, that’s just 2.7 miles, from the CBD, the altitude has risen to 705 metres of 2,3132 feet. Not particularly high when compared with Europe and north and south Americas.

In the 15 or so years I’ve lived here it’s snowed three or four times but on this occasion the snow fall was the heaviest seen for over forty years.

Many roads were closed including the Federal Highway that links Canberra, our Nation’s Capital to much of the northern part of the State.

From 5.30am onwards like many other locals I made copious images around the house and environs and here some of them.

We know that compared to countries where it does regularly snow, our little fall would not even raise an eyebrow.

However, for many of us it’s an event of great interest and enjoyment, particularly for kids who get to see and play in snow for the first time in their lives. Our local newspaper even ran photos of snowmen kids had built .

We all complained about the bitter cold but in a few months time we will all be complaining about the +38c to +40c summer heat.

Such is life in our wide brown (most of the time) land.

Hoo roo for now.