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194911 [2016/02/22 14:15] – [The Sydney Bushwalker Library] kennettj194911 [2016/02/22 14:24] – [The Rabbits Check Out] kennettj
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 It rained quietly all night. We lit breakfast fires and ate in abdulled tents in gentle rain. Moved off at 8.30 in quiet rain, back a mile down the road, and turned north into the straggly forest. It rained. In fact, it just darned well kept on raining in a calm, insidious manner. It rained quietly all night. We lit breakfast fires and ate in abdulled tents in gentle rain. Moved off at 8.30 in quiet rain, back a mile down the road, and turned north into the straggly forest. It rained. In fact, it just darned well kept on raining in a calm, insidious manner.
  
-Pushing through wet scrub is a bad business. You find a trail of sorts and it doesn/t quite coincide with your bearing, but you follow it because its a break from bush bashing. We did „lust that, and at 10 a.m. still in steady rain, we were in a nasty little gully west cf the correct ridge+Pushing through wet scrub is a bad business. You find a trail of sorts and it doesn't quite coincide with your bearing, but you follow it because its a break from bush bashing. We did just that, and at 10 a.m. still in steady rain, we were in a nasty little gully west of the correct ridge.
-We worked east on to the spur in a sticky tangle of spiny, pea-flowered shrubbery. It rasped our cold, wet legs cruelly and the going became so disagreeable that at 11.30 I led the party off the crown of the ridge end down towards the east arm of Wilson/s (Wanganderry) Creek. Cliffs there - probably not impossible, but the vision of tangled valley and misted gorge ahead not inviting.+
  
-By universal consent we looked for and found a generous sandstone overhang for early lunch and discussion of the situation. Having already done it once and got away with it, I rocked the party by recommending retreat. Such the influsnce of precedent Had the really truly leader of the tri:p been there the question would probably never have arisen, but Jupiter PlIlvius was here dealing with far more malleable material. The party looked its disbelief, but I was infinitely resourceful - I discovered arguments for retiring with the prodigality of a conjuror producing rabbits from a top hat. What's more, I convinced themGradually the murmlars of incredulity and dissent were stilled.+We worked east on to the spur in a sticky tangle of spiny, pea-flowered shrubbery. It rasped our cold, wet legs cruelly and the going became so disagreeable that at 11.30 I led the party off the crown of the ridge and down towards the east arm of Wilson's (Wanganderry) Creek. Cliffs there - probably not impossible, but the vision of tangled valley and misted gorge ahead not inviting. 
 + 
 +By universal consent we looked for and found a generous sandstone overhang for early lunch and discussion of the situation. Having already done it once and got away with it, I rocked the party by recommending retreat. Such the influence of precedentHad the really truly leader of the trip been there the question would probably never have arisen, but Jupiter Pluvius was here dealing with far more malleable material. The party looked its disbelief, but I was infinitely resourceful - I discovered arguments for retiring with the prodigality of a conjuror producing rabbits from a top hat. What's more, I convinced themGradually the murmurs of incredulity and dissent were stilled.
  
 A goodly fire was built, viands produced and various people set about catching trickles from rock faces in buckets and billies. Still the pestilential rain. A goodly fire was built, viands produced and various people set about catching trickles from rock faces in buckets and billies. Still the pestilential rain.
  
-Now, then, since we were turning in tho trip, should we remain overnight in our snug overhang, or beat it back to the road though the lacerating scrub tangle to pitch wet tents in the rain? Out of six people we obtained some fourteen various opinions and verdicts over .a period of time - the time it takes to 02t- leisca-ed lunch. The arguments were decided for us when we found that the water bucket beneath our most promising water point had yielded less than a pint and a half in two hours. TiGee, sat]. Don, I don't want a drycamp l" "Dry camp l" we echoed with horrible sardonic laughter. +Now, then, since we were turning in tho trip, should we remain overnight in our snug overhang, or beat it back to the road though the lacerating scrub tangle to pitch wet tents in the rain? Out of six people we obtained some fourteen various opinions and verdicts over a period of time - the time it takes to eat leisured lunch. The arguments were decided for us when we found that the water bucket beneath our most promising water point had yielded less than a pint and a half in two hours. "Gee" said Don, "I don't want a dry camp!" "Dry camp !" we echoed with horrible sardonic laughter. 
-So it was back to the road in rain developing into a windy downpour, back to camp a hundred yards east of the point where we had left the road eight hours earlier. The other two tents shared the Fire (note the capital) that night - a Fire carefully coaxed from seemingly saturated logs into a roaring, searing furnace. TI-o Fire was built between the two tents - and they were hardly six feet apart - so that the occupants slept salamander fashion in a boiler room atmosphere. Vapours curled from the leeward tent of Ron and Noel, and at intervals frightened faces peered out as the flames licked the steaming japara. + 
-It rained all night, but with first light came a lulls then a tiny patch of pale, clear sky which widened t:11 the sur, coy at his first glimpse of Wanganderry in at least two :tays winked a tentative eye and then smiled. A chill southerly sholJherded the clouds to regions which certainly didn't need them less. +So it was back to the road in rain developing into a windy downpour, back to camp a hundred yards east of the point where we had left the road eight hours earlier. The other two tents shared the Fire (note the capital) that night - a Fire carefully coaxed from seemingly saturated logs into a roaring, searing furnace. The Fire was built between the two tents - and they were hardly six feet apart - so that the occupants slept salamander fashion in a boiler room atmosphere. Vapours curled from the leeward tent of Ron and Noel, and at intervals frightened faces peered out as the flames licked the steaming japara. 
 + 
 +It rained all night, but with first light came a lulls then a tiny patch of pale, clear sky which widened ti11 the sun, coy at his first glimpse of Wanganderry in at least two days winked a tentative eye and then smiled. A chill southerly shepherded the clouds to regions which certainly didn't need them less.  
 +And we road bashed in thirteen miles to Mittagong.  
 + 
 +The pastoral country was green and fresh in the weak sun, the massed clouds pictorial, but it was still road-bashing. The little girl in the cafe couldn't identify the battered, unshaven team as her customers of Friday night until Meadows unleashed his baby blue eyes and animated eye lashes, when we were persona grata.
  
-And we road bashed in thirteen miles to Mittagong. The pastoral country was green and fresh in the weak sunthe massed clouds pictorial, but it was still road-bashingThe little girl in the cafe couldn'identify the batteredunshaven team ao her customers of Friday night until Meadows unleashed his baby blue eyes and animated eye lasheswhen we were persona grata.+We entrained, and Don discarded a pair of boots from the carriage windowafter significant gestures to Sunday afternoon strollers who came to investigateTwo of the party actually thanked me for the trip as they left us at Liverpool — Don went his way to explain to his food party (Don'be unkind to himfood party - his unfailing cheerfulness meant a good deal to us that weekend), drained the bitter dregs of defeat again (good cliche there do you see?), and have since been carefully cautioning people about the Club"I've had wet weekends" or "I'm a fair weather walker from now on".
  
-We entrained, and Don discarded a pair of boots from the carriage window, after significant gestures to Sunday afternoon strollers who came to investigate. Two of the party actually thanked me for the trip as they left us at Liverpool — Don went his way to explain to his food party (Don't be unkind to him, food party - his unfailing cheerfulness meant a good deal to us that weekend), drained the bitter dregs of defeat again (good cliche there d-'you see7, and have since been carefully cautioning people about the Cl-ctb, "I've had wet weekends" or Im a fair weather walker from now on'l. +Well, I'm a pansy. I'm a heel. I'a sissy bushwalker. So what?"
-Well, I'm a pansy. I'm a heel. Itra a sissy bushwalker. So what?"+
  
  
194911.txt · Last modified: 2016/02/22 17:00 by kennettj

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