Cooma is the main service town on the Monaro road to the Snowy Mountains. Most travelers meet it while driving between Canberra and the ski fields, but it has enough odd local substance to reward a deliberate stop.
The town's best story is the Snowy Mountains Scheme, the huge hydro-electric and irrigation project that reshaped this part of New South Wales and brought workers from across postwar Europe. The Snowy Hydro Discovery Centre gives that story some scale. Cooma also has one of Australia's stranger small museums: the New South Wales Corrective Services Museum, beside the prison and often guided by inmates.
This is not a polished resort town. It feels practical, cold in winter, and a little windswept, which is part of its appeal. For a spare day on the way to the Alps, Cooma is better than treating it only as a fuel stop.