Mmmm, Spring is in the air

Well you've probably all noticed by now that it is no longer so cold outside (in fact somedays it is positively stinking hot), and all that lovely snow down in the snowy mountains is well on its way to disappearing. It also means that it is a great time to go canyoning, and if your interested in finding out more about canyoning, then you can read our article below.

We've got three trip reports in this newsletter (which is really great), so you might feel inspired to do a bit more bushwalking, caving or even XC skiing (next year). Remember that we are always keen to get reports on any trips that you have done, so if you've got a report that you'd like published here or on the web page let me (Daniel Marlay) know at danielm@multinet.com.au or 9969-9167.

Finally my apologies for some omissions in the last newsletter, in particular the of the October club meeting, I had some other matters on my mind at the time, and my mind wasn't fully on the job. Hopefully this issue will make up for that.

Sports Association Blues Dinner

This is being held on the evening of Saturday 23 October 1999, in the Scientia. This is the big dinner that is held each year to recognise those people who have done exceptionally well in university sport, and to award the club of the year prize. It is also a really fun night out, and a great way to meet people from some of the other sports clubs on campus. The cost is $55, but the club will subsidise $15 - $25 of this (depending on how many people want to go) in an effort to get a reasonable number along from our club. If you'd like to go, contact Andrew Wong at ccw@bigpond.com or 4736-6648 as soon as youve received this newsletter!

Some Ideas for Walks and Things

Maybe you find yourself with some free time, at short notice, or the trips in our trips list don't appeal to you. I've put together a short list of walks and activities that you can do at short notice, with a friend or two. If you'd like some more information contact me (Daniel Marlay) at danielm@multinet.com.au or 9969 9167.

• The Coast Walk, Royal National Park, 1-2 hours by train from Sydney. An easy 2 day walk, slightly more challenging when attempted in one day. Great views of the ocean, and plenty of beaches to swim at along the way.
• The Oaks Fire Trail, Lower Blue Mountains, 1-2 hours by train from Sydney, 1 day all up. This is the classic Blue Mountains mountain biking trip. You catch the train to the top and then ride to the bottom. There is a swimming hole near the end, and food and refreshments at the end.
• The Grand Canyon, Blue Mountains, 2 hours by train from Sydney, 1 day all up. This is a fantastic way to see a canyon with out getting too deep or too wet. It is an hours walk from Blackheath station to the start of the track, but there are great views throughout the walk. If you have enough time, you can continue down into the Grose Valley to Blue Gum forest, stay there overnight, and return via Perry's lookdown the next day.
• The Spit Bridge to Manly walk, Sydney, 1/2 hour by bus from the city to the start of the walk. Catch a jetcat or ferry back from Manly. This walk takes about 3 hours at a moderate pace, and so can be done in the afternoons with daylight saving and the long summer days.

Website

We've made some more additions to the website, including lists of people you can contact for friendly advice about any of our activities. Remember that we are always looking for more content in the form of articles, photos or suggestions for the website and newsletter. Contact Daniel Marlay at danielm@multinet.com.au

Canyoning

Well you've seen the occasional notice in the trips list through out winter, and maybe you've heard a bit about it before, and you're wondering what this canyoning business is all about. In its most basic form, canyoning involves walking along a creek as it winds its way down through a canyon. Some canyons (horizontal canyons) have no significant drops in them, and can be traversed without the need for ropes and abseiling equipment. Other canyons either require largish jumps into rockpools as you make your way down the canyon, or abseiling down even bigger drops.

Canyons are usually quite cold, the floor of the canyon will often only receive light for a few hours each day. Often there are sections where sides of the canyon meet the creek, forcing you to swim along the creek to get to the next section of the canyon. The longer canyons can take more than a day to traverse, although most of the popular canyons can be done in the length of a day.

Why would people want to drag themselves through the cold dark water at the bottom of a canyon? Because the environment in a canyon is unlike anything else in the bush. There are ferns and mosses growing all around. The sides are often beautifully shaped by the action of the creek during their formation. Sometimes the canyon will get so constricted that there no light at the bottom. In these conditions you can often find hundreds of glow worms lighting up the roof of the canyon.

Also, traversing a canyon is great fun. There are all sorts of rock slides, waterfalls, jumps and other challenges to be negotiated as you make your way down the canyon. There is a huge range of difficulty in canyons, ranging from those which just about anyone can do, through to challenging multi-day adventures that require true skill to complete successfully.

There will be a few canyoning trips happening in the next month or two, so why not try this fantastic sport.

Walking to the Wollangambe Crater

Trip report for Wollangambe Crater walk on saturday october 2nd. Relatively easy walking, but care needs to be taken when following the ridges and when negotiating the cliff-lines.

Originally planned as a 2 day walk that had been scuppered by the train strike, I decided to compress it into a daywalk that James and I could do at the weekend. We started from Bell station and followed the ridges north and east towards the Crater. There are some great pagodas along the way, including one which I was told is named "Centre of the Universe". They all have great views, and must be climbed! Remember that these are not shown on the maps, and neither are any of the many clifflines. We climbed down any number that we probably could have walked around (why bother?). The actual meteorite crater looks more impressive when seen from a distance, as it looked to be fully overgrown. To get back to Bell, we crossed the Wollangambe (surprisingly easy where we crossed, later high views looked down into the main canyon), carried over to Bell Creek, and then up to Bells Line of Road and the car.

Caving at Colong

Colong Caves Trip 24-26th September 1999 by James Southwell

Cavers: Greg, Angus, Danielle, Marton, David, Owain and James.

Colong caves lies deep within a magnificient outcrop of limestone fairly close to the historic mining town of Yerranderie. Being my first trip underground it was hard to anticipate what it would be like to be away from the much loved sunshine and fresh air of the Blue Mountains. The trip started on a Friday evening where a four to five hour drive via Katoomba, Oberon and many mysterious dirt roads took us to the start of the walk to the caves.

It was past midnight and our group of seven took the trail which led us away from the roads, deep into the wilderness. The dim glow of the moon revealed the deep valley which was surrounded by limestone, and a lot of it! What seemed like hours later, we arrived at camp at the base of the valley at around five in the morning where we slept.

Owain proved to us the practical use of wearing sunglasses as we slept through most of the morning! It was late morning before Greg our knowledgable caving expert led us into the caves with a storm making its presence nearby. The stillness in the caves made us welcome as we crawled, rolled? and scrambled our way into a large cavern. Danielle proved that being the shorter of us was an advantage as the ceiling height of the tunnels became lower and narrower as we progressed passed some incredible formations. Some columns were about five to six meters high and as thick as a tree trunk, while others formed intricate fluted shapes with magnificient oranges and reds.

The extensiveness of the caves was apparent as we encountered what seemed like endless possibilities different routes. Feeling disorientated it soon became clear that we were in the section cavers described as THE MAZE. The maze features a series of tunnels which connect with each other in what seems to be total chaos. However exploring different routes we were able to negotiate our way into a large airy cavern called Kings Cross?! We were welcomed by the occasional flutter of the small bats which live within and a guest book full of stories and names.

Time had passed and it was not long till we enjoyed a candlelit lunch! Further exploration to what we believed to be Wallis Cavern signalled it was time to return back to camp. It was night when we reached the exit to the cave system after more than 12 hours of what was an incredible experience. We celebrated later with a feast of fantastic food.

Thanks to all for a great time!

To visit Colong Caves obtain:

• Caving permit through national parks.
• Obtain detailed sketch maps of cave system.
• Use 1:25000 CMA Bindook map.
• An experienced caving guide.

Spring Skiing near Mt Kosciuzko

On the weekend of the 18th and 19th of September 1999, I set off, along with David Selby and Scott Morrison for an end of season weekend cross country skiing trip. Dave had never skiied before, and Scott had only skiied downhill.

We met up outside the UNSW gate on Barker St, at about 5:30pm on Friday the 17th. With the ski hire places in Jindabyne closing at 12am, it is essential to get a good start from Sydney if one plans to hire your skis on Friday evening. We made good time down to Canberra, but probably spent a little bit too long eating at the fish & chip shop with my friend Chris in Canberra.

Well fed, we continued our way down to Jindabyne, but we were running just a little too late to make it to the shops in time. Shortly after we found ourselves at the Thredbo Diggings camp site (GR 276653), and we quickly headed to bed, ready for the skiing tomorrow.

We headed off to Jindabyne, at about 8:30am that morning, but with the hiring of skis, last minute purchases of food, etc., it was about 10:30am before we reached the carpark at Thredbo. After changing into our skiing gear, and lightening our wallets to the tune of $17 each, we headed up the Crackenback chairlift to gain access to what remained of the snow, at 11:30am.

The forecast had predicted that it there would be snow on the Saturday, and snow there was. It was mildly windy, with a low cloud cover, and the continual gentle fall of snow. It wasn't, however, the lovely light flakes of mid-winter, but the more round variety, with a consistency more like 1mm diameter hailstones. While we were hoping for some sunny days, any Australian skiier knows not to begrudge the days that one gets a top up of the white stuff.

We spent a little while pottering up and down the slope just outside the chairlift station (GR 152604), so that Dave and Scott could get used to the feel of XC skis before we donned our packs and headed off into the backcountry. After a while, they both felt confident enough for us to don our packs and start on our way. My vague plan was to head out along the way the metal walkway to Kosciuzko goes for a while and then find some place to stop, set up tents and ski free for the rest of the afternoon.

We found a snowbridge across the creek at GR 150607 and proceeded to head north to the next saddle. Along the way I showed Scott and Dave the basics required to negotiate the terrain along the way. Being spring of a bad season there was very little snow cover on the ridge tops, and hence the bushes and grass were only just covered. This leads to an interesting cross between normal skiing and bushwalking, which seems a lot worse than it is.

Shortly before gaining the saddle at GR 147618, we stopped behind a large bouder to heat up some hot chocolate and have lunch. After lunch, we continued over the saddle, and down to the creek at GR147623. Dave and Scott both discovered that running down the hills with a pack on, is not quite as easy as it might first appear. By the time we had reached the bottom, the cloud level had descended and visibility had dropped down to less than 100m.

I headed us off again in the direction of the saddle at GR 138632. Through a combination of not bothering to look at the map, and edging too far to the left, I managed to navigate us around the side of the bowl just to the north-east of North Ramshead (GR 137616) and back down to the creek crossing at GR 147623. Having realised my mistake, we headed off again at 4:00pm to gain the saddle at GR 138632 and descend into the Cootapatamba Valley.

We reached the saddle to be confronted with a fair gale blowing over the top. Dave was starting to get tired, and feel the effects of a rather full on day for a beginner, so we had to carefully make our way down into the Cootapatamba valley at GR 133632. Down in the valley, we met up with the remenants of a pole line, and started to head down the valley to the South, with the intention of reaching Cootapatamba hut (GR 124622).

Skiing down the valley in that visibility was an interesting experience. With the visibility at less than 50m, one could sometimes lose sight of any black objects to give one a reference point. Surrounded by white like that, with the only things visible being your two companions, does funny things to ones orientation. Sometimes you really had to concentrate to detect whether you were heading downhill or up hill.

Eventually we were catching glimpses of the little red Cootapatamba hut in the distance, and slowly we made our way to this place of refuge in a storm. Cootapatamba hut, as I found out, is a small hydrographers hut left in place after the Snowy Mountains Authority had done its work out here. It has a main room, which is about the size of two bunk beds placed side by side. It contains a bunk bed on one side, and a small chest on the other side. On the end of this room is a tall entranceway chimney. In low snow conditions, there is a door in the side of this at ground level to allow you to enter the hut. There is also a ladder up the inside, and outside, along with an entrance hatch in the top, so that one can gain access when the snow has blocked off the lower door. In recent years, the abysmal snowfall would make one think this feature was actually a case of wishful thinking.

We settled down into the hut to get our dinner ready by the light of my trusty candle lantern. We started off with a selection of cheeses and crackers. This was followed a small variety of main meals of pasta and rice, accompanied by a red wine provided by Scott finally we had hot chocolate, laced with some rum, and consumed with mint slice biscuits. On one of our occasional outings into the snow we saw a rather bemused little native rat, which seemed to think that Scott's boot was a good thing to hide behind.

A perousal of the hut's log book revealed an entry from two years ago, when Chris Ernst, Rick Hocking, Emma Murray and I had visited this hut. Not many people had visted the hut in the intervening two years, but it was good to see that some people were continuing the vigil against the Evil Killer Sandwich.

The next day, after a good sleep in the tent outside for Scott and myself, and inside the hut for Dave, we had an easy breakfast, and headed out to track out the slope above the hut to the east. The fresh snowfall from the previous day had provided the perfect slope for Scott and Dave to practise their newly acquired skills on XC skis. I even managed to get in a few very enjoyable telemark (or is that telemarketing) runs down that slope. The morning had broken cloud cover, that provided great conditions for skiing in.

At midday, we headed back down to the hut to have lunch, and get packed for the slog back up the hill and across to the chairlift. We saw a few other groups of skiiers, who were heading out to check out Leather Barrel Creek and Mt Kosciuzko. After lunch we donned our packs again, and headed up the slope to the shoulder at GR 132618. From here we headed across to the north of North Ramshead, where I saw a fox amongst the boulders, and back down to the creek crossing at GR 147623. From here we headed back up to the saddle where we had had lunch yesterday, and then back down to the top of the chairlift.

Back up the chairlift, we witnessed a throng of Geelong College students, about to head out on what looked to be an epic tour, judging by the amount of gear carried. Two of the group had fully laden sleds in addition to their packs. We however headed up into the Eagles Nest Cafe, to consume some much needed refreshments before heading back down to the car at Thredbo.

We stopped off in Canberra on our way back to have dinner with Chris at the fantastic Tilley's cafe/bar/live entertainment venue. The fine food here providing the perfect end to the weekend's adventures.

Canyoning at the Wolgan

Howdy folks. I am here to tell you a story, of 3 lovely ladies, and of 4 very hardy men. It was a 4 hour drive that brought them to the Wolgans, and that's how they became the canyoning bunch. The canyoning bunch. The canyoning bunch. That's how they all became the canyoning bunch. It all started out on a pleasantly chilly night, with the nice drive up the M4 to Lithgow through the Blue Mountains (after a small detour to avoid the toll of course). We all rendezvoused at Lithgow Pizza Hut, where we sat down for one last night of 'civilized' feasting before disappearing off into the cold uncomfortable wild. Funnily enough, this was probably the worst meal of the weekend. We then hopped into our roaringly powerful machines to zoom off to the place of canyons. After a nerve-racking 40 minute drive down a truly ominous dirt track, in constant danger of being crushed by falling rocks, and a near car failure experience, we finally arrived at our campsite-to-be. We started setting up (and realized how dopily redundant we were - 7 people do not require 5 tents), but the beauty of the night entranced us and we all ended out on groundsheets staring at the stars. Definitely a great start to the weekend thought I as sleep snuck up on me and slammed me on the back of the head real hard.

The next day we woke up at a very ungodly hour, geared up and set out. Today we would attempt to find and master the aptly named starlight canyon. Assured by our faithful guide that this was in fact a 'dry'canyon, we left with a bare minimum of warm stuff - a woollen jumper each and a few sets of thermal underwear. Thus equipped and provisioned, we set out on the trek to the start of the canyon. The first stage was a nice brisk bushwalk up an increasingly steep and painful slope. Sorry, did I say nice? I meant gorgeous (although mildly tiring to our band of mildly inexperienced incompetents). The view from the exposed points was quite amazing, and at the top there was a lovely lookout from which we gazed out over the valley while munching on peppermint carob and lovely peanuts.

While the followers relaxed and contemplated our collective navels, Scott and Owain attempted to discover the arcane secrets of topo maps - such as where our trail was. After much humming and haaaing, we just decided to set off into the deepest darkest bush we could find. Finally we found the first abseil into the canyon. By now we were laughing at our initial fears of chilly weather - how could we ever be cold on a gorgeous day like today?

Boy would we find out. So we began to follow the canyon. The going was pretty easy, and there weren't many abseils at all. The first really cool thing we found was an overhang which had water dripping off it. The wind blowing past it was amazingly parallel, and so hundreds of parallel furrows about an inch deep had been carved in the sand below from dripping water. Very cool. Then we all of a sudden came upon the highlight of this particular canyon. A 20-25 meter black hole straight down, with a slight breeze blowing out of it and a disturbingly large pool of water at the bottom, considering that this was a 'dry' canyon. Looking a little worried we sent down Scott to see if the canyon was actually do-able. After a quick scout he reassured us that everything would be cool, so into the hole we headed. A few of us managed to have the foresight to think "big black hole + water = wear thermals", and it was good that we did. Owain dashed over to the far side for the pretty photo ops of descending a waterfall, and into the dark we went.

The tunnel. How to describe it? I have been waffling up to here to try and think of a way to describe it, but I am still at a loss. Picture this: a 300 m long tunnel (very thin, and very short in places) with long stretches of knee - waist high water, and literally thousands and thousands of glow-worms just coating all the walls. With the lights off it was like having our own private night sky during the day. There were many more gasps of wonder and delight than of freezing and cold, and it was definitely the highlight of the canyon. A few extra special memories come from those moments when we had to go through bits with only a bit less than a foot between the roof and our heads. Definitely NOT a canyon to do with too much water. Upon stumbling out into the warm(ish) sunlight at long last we just sat and ate and thought deep thoughts. Definitely a VERY cool place.

The rest of the day was a bit of a blur: there was a pretty long climb down through very slippery boulders, and about a 5-6 km walk back to camp (unless you get lost, that is). Back at the camp we set up a roaring blaze with wood brought in by the park rangers, and sat and told stories while exchanging back and foot rubs.

Sleep. Stars. Gorgeous.

Slept in. We set off, much later, with much heavier boots, weighted mostly by our collective exhaustion. Today it was the Pipeline canyon - a very different canyon. There were about eight abseils in total, all slippery and slimey and much fun. This was the 'wet' canyon. Thus, much wetter than the 'dry' canyon. In places the water reached over our heads, and by the end of the day we had all learnt the true meaning of cold.

The scenery was amazing, and the closest many of us have come to being in a rainforest. Slimy and dirty as hell, but that just added to the fun we were having. A few of the beginners had trouble with some of the abseils, but overall they weren't too bad. Some experience is recommended, though.

Finally, we stumbled out of the canyon onto a sheer cliff face which we found WAS the walk back. We had a fly-on-the-cliff view of the valley for the hour and a half walk back to our campsite, where we saw the end of our day. Bloody amazing.

And so, after much rejoicing and packing and changing of clothes and getting warm and starting of cars and picking up of stray socks trying to make it in the wild (a real danger to wild feet) we set off back down the mountain towards home. It was a truly awesome weekend, and I would thoroughly recommend it to all and sundry.

Love yous all, Bob.

P.S. Thanks a bunch to Scott Morrison for making this happen.

The Trips List