UNSW Bushwalking & Mountaineering Club

Newsletter - February 2002

Introduction

Welcome back for the year 2002. Hopefully you've had a good holiday, and are ready to get back into action at university (or should that be inaction). For those of you who are new to the club, whether this is your first year at university or not, whether you are an exchange student, a local student or another member of the university, welcome to the club. It is up to you to make the most of this club, we provide a great way for you to get together with other outdoorspeople and get out into the Australian bush, but ultimately you have to make the effort to sign up for trips and get out there. You've taken the first step, make sure you take the next.

This year we hope to bring you the usual wide selection of activities that we've been able to offer in the past. If you'd like to run a trip for the club, then please let us know. We can provide advice on how to organise a trip if you've never organised one before, and we can advertise your trip in the newsletter and on the website to help you get people along. The more people helping to organise club trips, the healthier the club becomes.

How the club works

Our club is basically a social club, which allows people with a similar interest in the outdoors to meet and organise trips together. Most of us aren't professionals, though a lot of us have many years of experience in leading trips, and so the trips are run on a competent amateur basis. Each trip is like a trip that you'd organise with your own friends, except that with hundreds club members, it is much easier to get people for your trips, and to meet other outdoors people.

Each month, on the second Tuesday of the month at 7:00pm in the Roundhouse we hold a club meeting. People show slides and photos of previous trips, we listen to guest speakers and announce upcoming trips. If you'd like to meet and get to know the people who are active in the club, come along to one of these meetings. Any trips that are announced at the meeting or have been notified to the newsletter editor, are added to the trips list, which is incorporated into the next newsletter and posted on our webpage. People who are interested in a trip can then contact the trip leader, and find out more about it.

In addition our club has a huge selection of gear which is available for use on club trips and, depending upon availability, for hire for your own personal trips. We require a deposit on the gear that is refunded upon the safe return of the gear.

If you are interested in rock climbing, we have regular training sessions every friday evening during session from 5pm. These are held at "The Ledge", a climbing gym in the Sydney University Womens Sports Union. Once you have acquired the basic rope skills involved in rockclimbing, you can attend these weekly training sessions for free (you will need to bring your own harness and shoes, or hire them).

Who's who

So who actually runs the club, and who do you contact if you need help with any aspect of the club. If possible contact us through e-mail, it is our preferred method of communication. If not, then don't ring before 8:00am in the morning or after 9:00pm at night, you may have strange waking hours, some of us don't.

Our Website - http://www.bmc.unsw.edu.au

We are trying to move most of our club information and processes onto our website. This means that you should always be able to find up to date information about the club. unswbmc stands for UNSW Bushwalking and Mountaineering Club, thus the URL of the website.

http://www.bmc.unsw.edu.au

The main page of the website.

Once you're there, the more important pages on the site are:

/admin/trips.html

The trips list - the most up to date listing of the club's activities.

/admin/memberform.html

A printable copy of our membership form.

/admin/maillist.html

Forms for joining the clubs general announcements and rock climbing discussion e-mail lists.

Also on the website we have sections for most of the activities that we do, with lists of what to bring on trips, who to contact for advice on different activities and photos. We also have other information pertaining to the administration of the club, and copies of past and current newsletters.

Kowmung River Bushwalk (February 2002)

Mark Worsfold drove his Commodore sedan and managed to fit myself (Karl), Mike Parin, Jason and Martin as well as our 5 packs. The ride out of the city, on Parramatta Rd and the M4 was just sensational with little traffic on a Friday afternoon?

It took (only) 5 hours to get to Kanangra Walls carpark after a slight 30km extra detour by mistake. Hence we arrived at 8:50 pm and walked to the overhang about 1 km with our flashlights to sleep away Friday night. It was pretty comfortable sleeping apart from a bit of a chill in the air.

Ben came round at about 6:45am (ouch) and we drove out to the head. The first thing that starts alarm bells ringing in the sane part of your brain (the thing you turn off when climbing sea cliffs) is the descent route. Scott told us that the last time he'd climbed at North Head, he'd abseiled it instead of walking it, but since Keo had already started down, Ben and I had no choice but to follow.

The highlights of the descent are first the section where there's at most six inches of ledge that your walking on and you just have to hang on to a chain and believe very strongly that you aren't going to slip. Keo's wonderful advice: "Don't look down." Lower down, but still a good fifteen metres above the waves crashing into rocks below, there's a wonderful step across in a little corner. Basically it's two ledges that taper to a point where they very nearly meet. Shutting your eyes and stepping across is not an option as both sides are about an inch deep in little flakes of shale(?) just waiting to slip out from under you.

We set out about 8:20am saturday morning for the Kowmung river. Kanangra Falls were pretty spectacular with ragged ridgelines nearby. Passing coal seem cliff and onto Brumby Ridge we found the track without too much trouble (one minor diversion). We stopped for lunch at a point where the walk description said the track was barely discernable from there on. We found it no dramas and the walk continued through some overgrown sections, we spotted a big old Goanna climbing a tree, and then walked down 800m vertically over about 3-4km.

When we made it to the river at about 2:30pm it was a great relief. It was soon before we were in the river, soaking up the sun and gazing at Orange Bluff with its sharply cut and jagged face and grey and orange colours. The river was about knee deep until halfway across when it became slightly deeper. The water was clear and its base was smooth river stones. Both up and downstream were small rapids. It was just a perfect setting in the Australian Bush, lying in the river with the warm sun, orange cliffs, cool water and talking blokey stuff since no girls were part of the trip. Girls are more than welcome of course!

Saturday afternoon was spent eating, setting up tents, eating a bit more, and relaxing by the river on an open grassy flat. We did a minor exploration up river and took some shots at local wildlife (just kidding, I mean with the camera of the cliffs).

I set up a screamer of a campfire that was a work of art where we used firewood already gathered by previous campers. Saturday night was spent talking about all sorts of interesting stuff like why Starion cars were meant to be called Stallions but the translation was lost from the Japanese designers not being able to pronounce 'l's'. Have you seen the car badge with a horse on it but the car's name is Starion?

Sunday morning and we ate brekky, spotted a wild dog eyeing our camp site, packed up and fired up for the 800m vertical climb back out. It was actually easier in some respects than descending, but were were totally soaked from sweat. I think we made it back to the car at 1:30pm, on the way spotting two yellow belly black snakes. On the way back we stopped at Hampton were they served the best value steak sandwich with the lot I have ever eaten, $5.00 !

My review doesn't do the weekend justice, it was a great weekend and thanks to Mark Worsfold for organising it and the other fellows for the good company.

The Trips List