UNSW Bushwalking & Mountaineering Club

Newsletter - June/July 2002

Needed: trips reports and contributions to this newsletter. Please send them to Andrew (acollins@climb.wow.aust.com).

AGM

The clubs AGM will be on Tuesday August 13 (week 3), upstairs at the Roundhouse. In addition to a normal club meeting (yes, with food this time!), we will be voting in a new executive. Its early in session, so come along, meet some other club members, get excited about some trips, and help vote in the new exec.

New Club Executive

The Bushwalking and Mountaineering Club provides a wide range of opportunities to uni students. It allows allows people with an interest in the Ausralian outdoors to get together and plan trips. The club does not run itself. The club's executive help make the club what it is today. They secure funding from the sports association, organise meetings and produce newsletters, purchase gear for the club and lend it out to club members, and perform all the little jobs that make the club run.

We're looking for some new faces in the exec. Some existing executive members won't be with us next year, others will be bogged down with a thesis or post graduate study. So we're looking to you to help out. Some roles require more time than others, but you can be certain that jobs get shared around, so no one member on the exec gets overworked. We're also a fairly easy going exec - don't be worried about control freaks or exec members who insist on things being done by the book. I'll list the roles below, together with an explanation of what they do. Also, we sometimes have two people filling the one role, to help ease the workload.

If you are interested, or have any question, please email Andrew at acollins@climb.wow.aust.com. Then we can talk about what role you might want to play. Also, if you are interested, come along to the exec meeting that will be held one hour before the AGM, 6pm downstairs in the Roundhouse.

President
Chairs the executive meetings. Coordinates executive members. Provides club direction (!). More than anything, does the little things that keep the club running.

Vice President
Similar to president. Roles may include producing the newsletters, updating the trips list, and keeping track of who has been on what trip for funding purposes.

Treasurer
Looks after the money. We get funding both from membership fees and the sports association. Acounts have to be balaned four times a year.

Secretary
Writes the minutes for the exec meetings. Deals with membership enquiries and looks after the membership database.

Gear guys and gals
Hire out club gear from our gear cupboard. Hire goons to harass people who don't return gear.

SA Representatives (2)
Represents us at the sports association meetings. A small role, and a good way to get into the exec.

Climbing officer
Promotes climbing in the club. Keeps the people at the Ledge happy. Looks after the clubs climbing gear.

Biking officer
Promotes all forms of biking in the club.

Social officer
Organise club social events.

Arrow 24 Hour Adventure Race

The Arrow 24 Hour Adventure Race was a success. Perfect weather, a lovely area (around Wisemans Ferry) and a great bunch of people made for a good time. Our teams were also very competitive. The race consisted of a 40km mountain bike, 35km canoe, 35km run/navigation exercise, and a final bike run back to base (these distanes are only approximates).

Simon Angus and Dave Janmaat came 3rd in the open category. They completed every stage, quite an achievement. They might have been faster still if we had not ended up with some slow sea kayaks.

The other team was a relay team, and consisted of Adam Barnes and Karl Umlauff on their bikes, Hudson Doyle and Mike Doran in the kayak, and Mark Balawender and Martin Hing for the run. The came 10th in the relay category out of 21 teams.

It is also worth noting the contributions of the support crew, who helped out but did not race. Dave Healy, Stephan Adler, Andrew Collins, Anne Schmidt, any others I've forgot to mention, and most of all Carolina Roman, who did a great job of organising our teams, support crews, equipment and so on.

Back to Bungonia - Caving Trip Report - 15/ 16 July 2002

Attendees:

After surprisingly everyone meeting on time at Sutton Forest Mcdonalds, we started the weekend with a delightful breakfast at McDonalds. One group who forgot their food picked up the meat at Marulan's finest butcher 'Country Killed Meats'!

Our first cave for the weekend, was B57, not really a cave in the true sense but a good place to get dirty and test some new comers claustrophobia. After significant renovations to the cave exit we were able to get even the big American through. I did not tell anyone about the numerous poisonous spiders that were spotted on the way through by people! Some people (Simon) made a lot of noise but very slow process. But all were psyched for more caving adventure and all made it through (although I think Johanna stayed a little to clean).

After a BBQ! We headed for the most re-known cave in the area, Grill Cave (Well Drum Cave and Odyssey are now shut!) A good cave for beginner cavers, with some big caverns and a few squeezes. As we progressed down the cave, our group slowly became smaller, until only the hard-core cavers were left. Jim in the lead, charging down the cave led the way! However from previous experience I was ever wary of foul air (yep not just from people's BO), which we unfortunately hit, much earlier than hoped for. Jim believed that the lighter was broken, and that if we were truly out of air that we would be goners already! But the height of Jo was able to prove otherwise, at full length of his extended arm height the lighter would ignite but bring it down it would mystically go out. So out we came out, frustrated as not to reach the full 150 metre depth of the cave, but filled with great memories nonetheless.

After setting - up camp, a little frisbee and vortex; night was soon upon us! Trevor, proud of his new car, kept us entertained with quality music (ignoring the correct warning words of Joy - 'You'll run the battery flat!'). We sat by the fire for a while, lit amazingly by green wood (taken into the National Park by car of-course!), had a few beers in an evening unfortunately cut short by a little rain.

Sunday; the group split, with some more eager for Bungonia's above ground experiences - Bushwalking - whilst the hardcore, planned for a bigger caving experience.

The next cave B51, was a training cave, to get people used to using the wire ladder. And after a bit of above ground arguing, Jo led the way down the hole, to later yell out from the bottom; 'could you lower the ladder a bit I can't reach it from the bottom'.

We then went to B71 (Dinosaur Cave) and laddered down, from the main entrance. A great fun cave, although progress was delayed, as we headed into a few of the incorrect squeezes on the way out - with numerous sub-terranean arguments about who was going through first! Then John, asked did you guys look up here to find a great (and quite obvious) snaked squeeze to make our way out!

We then re-met with the group had another BBQ and a few more beers, had a look at some of the look-outs and dreamed of the day's before the quarry destroyed one of the best canyons near Sydney (excluding those of Wollemi of course).

A great trip at a great destination. With plans hopefully soon to be fulfilled to come back (with more than one rope and ladder!) and explore to greater depths!

Shaun Lonergan

Trips List

Check out http://www.bmc.unsw.edu.au/admin/trips.html#now for the latest trips.