Kiama Alpine Club
This is the story of the Kiama Alpine Club - Kiama’s Snowy Mountains outpost.
The club was started in 1958 by two Ukrainian immigrants, Eugene and Lala Baranowsky, who had made Kiama their home. Eugene was a veterinarian, and when he immigrated to Australia and eventually moved to Kiama, after overcoming many hurdles, he was able to gain a job with a local dairy cooperative. Eugene and Lala subsequently developed very good friendships with the local farmers.
Eugene and Lala had always been keen skiers when they lived in Europe. The 1950s was also a time when ski lodges were starting to be developed, first in the Perisher Valley, then Thredbo. Eugene and Lala put down a £50 deposit on a lot at Friday Flats at a time when the village of Thredbo was no more than two small huts, an unfinished road, and a track for the yet-to-be-built chair to Kareela. This was where the Kiama Alpine Lodge was later built. However, Eugene urgently needed more funds to settle on the block of land, so he approached the local Kiama people he knew, and from there the idea of the Kiama Alpine Club and Lodge evolved.
Funds were raised from the new members to purchase the land and build a 12-bed lodge. Eight members became Active Patrons, each investing £300, and further local ordinary members pledged debentures of £25. Eugene became the first Club President.
The lodge has had ‘three lives’ during its 60+ years. The first lodge was destroyed by fire in 1968 when a faulty hot water system exploded, causing injury to three young men staying there at the time. It took about two years to rebuild the lodge as it was a perfect time to redesign and expand to accommodate the growing number of members. Most of the construction was done with weekend working bees from the Kiama members. Much of the furniture was built in member Fred Wynn’s garage and then transport down to the lodge. The third lodge came in 1984, when a bigger and more modern lodge was built to accommodate more members.
During the 1950s and 60s, Kiama members used to travel to Thredbo in convoy in case anyone had car troubles or an accident (there were no mobile phones or roadside assistance, and not many service stations along the way). In those days there was no such thing as car heating and window demisters, so once they hit the snowy area they would have to stop every couple of miles to scrape the ice off the windscreens, and they often drove with their ski gear on or wrapped in blankets to stay warm. In those days, it took anything up to 21 hours to travel from Kiama to Thredbo (compared to 5-6 hrs today). The very first convoy trip, in 1958, had heavy snow when they were coming into the Thredbo Valley. Only some of the cars carried chains, so when the convoy came to a standstill, Freddy Addison (of Addo’s Garage), who was travelling with them, spent a number of hours removing chains from one car once it was down the hill and walking back up the hill to put the chains on the next.
For more great Kiama skiing stories, we’ve got two books about the Kiama Alpine Club here in our Kiama Library Local History collection – come and ask us about it.