Greetings all, Firstly, I must apologise for my slight tardiness with this small publication. Also I would like to extend an official welcome to those of you who have recently joined us, hopefully we will see you out and about with us in the not too distant future. |
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If anyone missed my email bombardment last week, I will take this opportunity to plug Boree log II, which is happening on the 8th 9th and 10th of November at Bundeena in the Royal National Park. You can easily get there by public transport. Activities will include: swimming, bushwalking, mountain biking, canoeing, liloing, surfing (if you’re keen) and Saturday night will be a formal occasion. This will be a great weekend, but just a reminder, I need to know as soon as possible if you are coming. Any interest in coming, or general enquiries should be directed to boreelog@hotmail.com Response has been good so far and space is limited, so get in early for a very chilled out first two days of STUVAC.
Backcountry skiing, below Club Lake, Kosciuszko National
Park. (Daniel Marlay)
On Monday in the holidays, James and I set out to ride the Narrow Neck trail in the Blue Mountains just south of Katoomba. The meeting place was at 8 AM at Central station which was obviously too early for most people as James was the only person to turn up. About two hours later we finally arrived in Katoomba only to stop at the first pie shop to buy something for lunch since I had eaten all of my sandwiches out of boredom on the train. (After the first hour of train travel, all the conversation between James and myself was “Are we there yet?!” resulting in an angry stare by James as he had already been on a train for 1 ½ hours by that time from Hornsby)
After refuelling in Katoomba we finally managed to get going and followed the Fat Hippie’s directions to the start of the track. On the way there we passed Cahill’s lookout which gives you a great view of the beginning of the fire trail. Narrow neck begins with a short downhill section which turned out to be quite challenging actually, because we found ourselves in 3-4 cm of freshly dumped sand. (This turned out to be even more challenging on the way back; if you want to know what it felt like, ride a few laps on your local beach) We then proceeded to the first uphill section, which is also one of the steepest sections of the track. Once you get up that hill, you get to a gate that marks the start of the actual fire trail. From there on the track winds itself along the top of the plateau to Narrow Neck lookout about 30 kilometres and various little up hills and down hills further down the track. Along the entire way you have to watch out not to fall off your bike because of all the amazing views of Mount Solitary, the Jamison valley and the Megalong valley. |
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About 2 hours after we started from Katoomba we got close to the end of the ride, apparently not soon enough for James who decided to jump off his bike cursing (he actually hit a pretty big boulder going downhill which got him a little ‘unbalanced’). If you start early enough you make it to narrow neck lookout right around lunchtime which is a great spot to take a break, have lunch and enjoy the view. |
James and I posing at Narrow Neck lookout. (Andreas Knecht) |
The ride back to Katoomba was fairly uneventful, and after a
quick stop at the three sisters we went to the first Burger place and had
our third lunch of the day. Coincidentally we stopped right opposite of
Mountain Designs who were just having a 10-40% sale resulting in both of
us going on a little shopping spree. Narrow neck is pretty much the best mountain bike trip I’ve done and I highly recommend it to anyone else. It may be a little too hard for complete beginners, but if you’ve done a little riding you shouldn’t have any troubles. |
Fellow Travellers: Andreas, Dr. Sean, Alkyra, Lisa, Kelly, Gladys, Stacey,
Mark, Alex & myself
Topographic Map: Mountain Lagoon
Distance: approx. 28km
Grade: A challenging trip for beginners.
Colo River Gorge
Day 1
Sittin' 'round the fire drinkin' whiskey... |
After dropping everyone and the gear off at Mountain Lagoon,
Alkyra, Kelly & I dropped the cars off at Upper Colo Camping Ground
& got a lift back by Kevin the ranger. Not only were the cars safer
at Upper Colo but it saved us a car shuffle. I gave Kevin a six pack of
New for his trouble and we all bought raffle tickets for the local Rural
Fire Service. We started walking around 1pm for the 4km along the fire trail then a late lunch with spectacular views before the 2km (2 hours) hike down to Tootie Creek. The walking track was rocky but not too difficult as far as the lookout which provided spectacular views of the Colo Gorge. The track down off the ridge to the river was a bit hairy for some of our less experienced members but with a bit of teamwork everyone got down in one piece to the night’s campsite beside the river. We all had a wash in the river and a drink, set up the campsite, blew up our lilos to sleep on and ride for the rest of the weekend. Out came the whiskey and gin at dinner time for merriment around the fire, then off to bed, under the stars for some of us. |
Day 2
Now the fun begins. There were two trains of thought for liloing conditions
when I was planning this trip, both negative. One group of people said there
will be no water in the river and we will be walking all the way. The other
group said it would be so cold that we will freeze our bits off. Both wrong!
There was enough water to lilo about half the trip and because there was so
little water in the river and it was so sluggish the water temperature was cool
to just plain beautiful. A thermal shirt was the most I needed, some people
had summer wetsuits and this was more than sufficient. Within less than 100
metres of walking we worked out you only need a foot of water to lilo in so
we were floating. It takes a little while to get all the gear wrapped in garbage
bags & tied on but eventually we were away.
This first part of the trip was the best conditions we had all weekend. The water was mostly quite deep and we paddled along or towed our stuff along in the shallower sections. We got to the first set of rapids and discovered this game can be harder than it looks. Lisa wiped out in the rapids and had to be rescued by Sean and there was a bit wet gear here and there. We decided to stop for morning tea. Things were going very slowly. With so little water liloing is a lot slower than walking and I had to get things moving. One problem was that Gladys was only able to paddle her lilo in one direction - clockwise. I couldn’t quite work it out. We ended up hooking her up in a lilo train to keep things moving along. Alex had no problem because he had the smallest pack of anyone I’ve seen on a more than one night trip without running out of food. We ferried our gear around the second set of rapids and the third set were so mellow we all safely floated through. We started running out of water though and were forced to constantly swap between floating and towing our gear along whilst walking in the river (yes that’s right we spent two days walking or floating in a river barefoot). The heaviest of us tended to walk along and tow some of the others behind us in a train. Alkyra, Gladys, Kelly and Lisa took most advantage of this relaxing service but everyone got to have a go. Everyone except Stacey, who was too busy splashing everyone, and Andreas and Mark (who has a remarkable talent for keeping his stuff dry) who were way out in front. I also got to the point of just letting my gear float along on its own with a shove in the right direction every once in a while. Almost the entire day from lunchtime onwards was spent in this way. It’s faster than floating but much harder work. We met a group of walkers going in the opposite direction who didn’t seen to know how to take the news that they would have to swim some of the river at some stage. Another problem with this type of trip is communication. Often the group was strung out over a kilometre along the river and telling people to stop for lunch required a fair bit of Chinese yelling (very loud Chinese whispers). | Mark the master liloer showing us how it's done! |
I wanted to get to Colo Meroo in time to see what I was eating for dinner but
alas we only got there in time to see what I was cooking.
Colo Meroo is cool. It has pit toilets that don’t smell too bad and a
large sheltered picnic and cooking area. It’s quiet as well as there is
no car access. We all set up our site and hung things out to dry, cooked dinner
listened to bits of the NRL Grand final, chatted and most of us drank whiskey
and gin till it was all gone. Lisa got nicely sloshed going from whiskey bottle
to whiskey bottle (Jack Daniel’s, Jim Beam, Canadian Club - all the same
to Lisa). Then we refilled our water bottles and went to bed.
Day 3
Started with Stacey getting up to go for a half hour run along the fire trail.
Nutter! We got away by 9 and floated and walked and towed down the river again.
We had learnt how to follow the deep bits and how to jump on and off quickly
by now so it was a pretty casual this morning floating past orchards and seeing
schools of small fish or having water fights. The water fights were usually
Stacey against someone then everyone against Stacey, then everyone against everyone.
At lunchtime the herd of cattle standing in the river indicated it was time
to stop drinking the river water unpurified.
The afternoon float only took about an hour to Upper Colo where we packed everything
up for the trip home.
Lunch day 3 - Up the creek without a paddle! |
Getting to the end was a bit of a letdown as I would have been happy to stroll along like this for days. I got the impression many of us felt the same I advertised this as a beginners trip and I am so glad I did. I must say this was probably the most personally rewarding trip I have ever done, even surpassing my ‘Getting Lost Down the Kowmung Trip’ I did a few years ago which is a good story to tell when I’m drunk. The people were excellent, everyone was a good sport, even those who had to be pushed along a bit, the company was excellent, and the cooperation among everyone was great. I don’t think I’ll forget in a hurry the countless times on this trip I was standing in the middle of the river with my lilo floating by grinning at someone or other and getting the same response back. This was a really good fun mellow trip with a great bunch of people. |
Friday night climbing at the Ledge – Go along it’s
free! (Keo Phetsaya)