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--- 198308 [2016/03/24 10:48] – [Arthur and Us - Part I] 5. All of which brought us to the heady stuff of which Walks Reports are wrought. We began with Tony Marshall's Kanangra trip over the weekend of 13,14,15 May. It was reported as a good trip, with 12 plus one starters. Gem Gagne' kclacher
+++ 198308 [2016/03/24 11:28] – old revision restored (2016/03/24 00:18)on, 16 March, on a cold, wet day (maximum 7<sup>0</sup> C) and were met by the leader (who had arrived ten days eimated that they were carrying 40 lbs each. Mark was advised to leave his leggings and hard hat behind kclacher
@@ Line 80: / Line 80: @@
 Instead of going straight into the walk as programmed, our introduction to the park, as a party, was two days spent above Arthurs Pass itself, firstly on the east side in the Temple Basin and in the upper Mingha Valley, and then an the west side on the slopes of Mt. Rolleston, 2271m. The leader had spent two days in the park on the previous weekend and proposed this change as a way of widening the scope of the walking to be done by the party. It proved to be an excellent beginning, in brilliantly fine weather immediately after snowfalls. The change was also partly due to recent alterations in the timetable for trains to and from the park, which had made impractical the use of public transport if full use was to be made of the days allotted for walking. The use of the leader's rental car to move the party from Christchurch to the park and back again kept the walking days to schedule and provided the sort of flexibilitY which members usually enjoy in their weekend walks out of Sydney.
-Anyway, three of the party members arrived in Christchurch late on Wednesday afternoon, 16 March, on a cold, wet day (maximum 7<sup>0</sup> C) and were met by the leader (who had arrived ten days earlier to do some walking on his own account). They were quickly transferred from the airport to their overnight accommodation at the Melville Private Hotel in Gloucester Street, close to the city centre, with instructions to be ready to be picked up at noon the following day. It was a frantic morning for Brian, Bronwyn and Steve of making onward travel arrangements to reach Abel Tasman National Park, their destination after the walking in Arthurs Pass, and of buying food/fuel for the immediate walking. And we did get away on time.
+Anyway, three of the party members arrived in Christchurch late on Wednesday afternoon. Pat later told us the story. Bill had assumed that we would get lost because of "poor leadership, inadequate maps and equipment". He had raised the alarm on reaching civilisation and the Forestry Commission had been alerted.
-All the way from Christchurch the Southern Alps were a line of white against blue sky, looming larger all the time. The storm of the previous day had dumped an impressive covering of snow. However, over the foothills
+That night we camped in cold, overcast conditions in a clearing at the Border Lookout.
-at Porters Pass, we found that the warmth of the day was melting the snow rapidly and, much the same as a rainbow, it seemed to recede the closer we got to it. It was the following day before we indulged in sliding around on steep slopes of compacted snow with its fresh cover.
-About 4:00 pm we walked away from the parking area on Arthur's Pass, at the start of the steeply rising Temple Basin Track, glad to leave behind the hardy sandflies in this chilly place which had hastened our change into walking gear. Earlier, we had made a brief stop at the Park Visitor Centre in Arthur's Pass township to record our intentions. Mt. Rolleston overhung the west view, with its upper slopes liberally slabbed with snowfields and the remnants of glaciers. Withing an hour the party had itself ascended 400m higher, above the bushline in the main park shelter in Temple Basin.
+The next morning we rejoined the mini-bus and were driven to the Tweed Valley Lookout, 940 metres above sea level. Here a notice proclaims: "We now saw the breakers again, their situation may always be found by the peaked mountain which bears SW by W from them and on their account I have named it Mt. Warning - Lt. Cook RN - 16 May 1770."
-In the gathering chill of the early evening the pot belly stove in the centre of the room was soon alight. It provided a little warmth, but was really quite inadequate to heat a room of hall-like proportions designed
+We arrived at Kyogie at 1:45 and sat down to a counter lunch, a welcome change from our bush repasts	At 5 pm we escorted Joyce to the railway station and climbed aboard the bus for our journey back to Brisbane.
-to shelter many day-use skiers. Piped water and flush toilets seemed luxuries, but were really necessities to cope with numbers in winter if the place was not to become a health hazard. Party members slept either on the floor or on the wide benches built in around the walls; and were awoken the following morning to the cacophony of Keas sliding down the metal roof of the shelter. Steve was soon outside trying to make contact with the locals, but without a great deal of success.
-Away on a day walk, we traipsed through the debris and scattered ski-tow equipment on what is essentially a downhill ski area, to the upper part of the Temple Basin; and, after a brief inspection of the other park shelter, we scrambled up the steep scree alongside the last ski-tow to the Col itself. In a few steps we were out of a chill breeze. and into the sun on the lee slope looking down into the upper Mingha Valley. Packed snow slopes offered glissading opportunities as we slowly made our way down. The way was fairly clear and there were probably a number of routes which we could have taken. Tn fine weather, all very easy. A waterfall of about 20m falling on rocks and then tumbling on through a large snowcave enticed us to inspect before we settled down to lunch in the snowgrass alongside a small side stream.
+===== Bush Walkers and the Big Bang =====
+by Jim Brown
-Our route back was to follow the rocky watercourse of the side stream which brought us out on a ridge spur about 500m above. For the next hour or so we walked and scrambled our way along the ridge and confirmed the description in the park handbook of ".... ridge upon ridge of broken rock.... deep-cut valleys below", eventually deciding to traverse back to Temple Col and a quick descent into the Temple Basin via a scree slope. The shadows were well drawn across the mountains by the time we reached the shelter.
+Of course;- bush walkers would never use explosives or fire-arms, would they? Never?  Well, hardly ever....
-Early on Saturday morning we went back to the car to move it down the highway about 500m and start another day walk, this time up on to Rome Ridge leading to Mt. Rolleston. By late morning we were back on a level with the shelter which we had left in Temple Basin opposite; that is, after a short taste of scrub-bashing to reach a ridge spur clear of the bushline - it gave us a healthy respect for the sort of foliage one can encounter by moving away from acknowledged routes. An ascent of Mt. Rolleston was not contemplated - although one could say that Steve had higher expectations than the rest of us - and after a generous break in the sun, reasonably sheltered from a chill breeze and with sweeping views into the Bealey Valley, we took the plunge down a scree slope which dropped us about 400m to the head of the Bealey Valley. The upper slope of the scree in fine shingle enabled giant steps, although lower down the size of the rocks slowed the pace - we still descended though in about 10-15 minutes.
+This thinking was inspired by the quotation from Phil Butt in the "Sydney Morning Herald" - see the June issue of the magazine . Then I remembered that, if you go far enough back in the Club's history, you will find' stories of members. shooting wild duck on the Kowmung River to supplement the rations they h65. carried through.the granite gorges higher up.	Oh, yes, and of course one of the early lady members carried a revolver as a protection against marauding- males..... not Club members, but the seedy itinerants who
+sometimes took to.the bush during the 1930s Depression years.	In spite of the reputed permissiveness of more recent years, no one seems to think such a precaution necessary now. Maybe we really are better behaved after all.
-After lunch, it was a pleasant half-hour walk out alongside the fledgling Bealey River to the highway, after which we repaired to Arthur's Pass township for all sorts of junk food at the tearooms before making a brief call at the Park Visitor Centre and moving down to the start of our main walk, i.e. at Hawdon Shelter, about a half-hour drive away from the township. The chilly and increasingly cloudy conditions close to the main divide resolved into a fine and relatively mild afternoon in the more easterly part of the park. The sandflies kept on keeping on though - damn them.
+But even in my time with the Club there have been walkers who were fascinated by the Big Bang. For some years there used to be a regular camp at Euroka Clearing in the Lower Blue Mountains (before there was a road there) on the weekend nearest to the 24th May (which used to be Empire Day - Cracker Night - in the days when there were still some vestiges of a British Empire,' my children). All comers brought their Catherine Wheels and Roman Candles, Port Lights and Rockets, and made the Blue Labyrinth resound on the Saturday evening.
-(Map reference: Arthur's Pass National Park, NZMS 273, 1:80,000, 1st edition; Otira, NS 1, S59, inch to the mile series)
+On one occasion a lighted firework, thrown with small regard ,for the environment, landed in a cardboard box at the edge of the campfire area. The box contained a selection of rockets, most of which took off dn horizontal trajectories. One was alleged to have passed through an abdulled tent, happily without causing damage or injury. Thereafter, our favourite camping site at Euroka was. defined in the walks programmes as "Fireworks Ridge".
-===== Advertisement =====
+In addition to those who were satisfied with commercial fireworks, there were others who liked louder noises. At a camp in 1952 (I think the Club's 25th Anniversary) some one let off an explosive device, occasioning.what might, be called in modern legal parlance_"publLa affront or alarm4-:- dff-be-ing-td1d:-
-==== For Sale ====
+not to do it again, the perpetrators displayed a suitably meek attitude, but countered with a proposal to blow up fallen trees which were causing serious  bank erosion at Blue Gum Forest.
-__One only__ "Norrona" two-man tunnel __tent__, "Skarstint" model, weight 2.8 kg, colour dark green, suitable for all conditions, as new - $300. (Refer 1st issue of "Wild" magazine for review - cost over $600 new.)
+Being at the time the S.B.W. representative on the Blue Gum Trust, I undertook to put the proposal to the Trust. Admittedly, I did so with fingers crossed and uttering a small prayer. However, the idea was readily adopted, and on the weekend of 25/26 April, 1953, the dynamiters went into action. Actually, it was gelignite which was used and, because it is apparently sensitive stuff, it was claimed that some of the party cuddled up to it in their sleeping bags at the top of the Perry's Lookdown track on the Friday night. (Shades of the old drill sergeant rasping "Right t The rifle_is the,soIdier's - best friend.	In very cold weather, or if anyone is likely to steal it, you WILL SLEEP with your rifle. After all, you'd sleep with your best friend, wouldn't you?")
-__Two only__ "Mountain Design" sleeping bags, "Ski Tourer" model, tulip shape; full zip, Goretex foot, rated to minus 15<sup>0</sup> approximate weight 1.9 kg, as new - $200 each.
+The Blue Gum affair wasn't quite as simple as it sounds. A drill was needed to burrow into'tfle hardened, saturated wood of the partially submerged logs and a chain block was used tb'Shift'sate Of the more massive lamps of timber. It was reCkbned at the time that Colin Putt, who carried the chain block, had a-load of.nearly 100.1bS -(about 44 Kg) on the way down to the forest. I think it was Peter Stitt who carried the petrol-engined drill, and he must have had 75 lbs (33.Kg).an his .back.	Several times over the weekend the cry arose "To the hills:" as the 31 workers were cleared fromthe explosion area. '	.	:
-Phone Bronwyn Stow -	81 1257 (H) 789 9242 (B) after 4 pm.
+At one stage on the Sunday morning .a rumour Spread around "They've poured the jelly down Brian Andersons shorts".- For a time Brian must have . .wondered if he had halitoSis, before it was explained that one of the girls had been trying to make edible jelly,, which wouldn't-set, and in a moment of devilment had poured the billy down. the back of Brian's shorts.
-===== For the Love of the South-West =====
+Honour - or the urge to make a **big bang** - must have been satisfied at Blue Gum. Although we had almost 50 people there for a. subsequent working bee in 1955 to consolidate the work on the "silt pack", there were no. more loud noises.	Our mantle passed to one of the Speliblogical Societies which was reported in 1955 to be using explosives to form a passage between two natural caves at Bungonia. Being reformed characters, we could afford to chuckle at Geoff Wagg's explanation in one of the Chronic Operas (to the tune of "For.he's gone and married Yum Yum" - from The Mikado):-
-by Peter Harris
-I am not alone with my thoughts. I used to be, but all of the unanswered questions have been answered. There is another voice inside me which calls for freedom, and weeps for my love of the South-West won.
-Mine is a burning life-force borne in peaceful lofty crags, and in the silent heathlands with their carpets of button grass and cushion plant. Mine is a satisfied want surpassing spiritual rebirth.
-I hear my name being beckoned in the high-pitched squeal of a cold wind, and creation beckons me from meaningless blank photograph, denuded of natural colour.
-Talk to me no more about joyful experiences of the South-West. Praise instead the many hearts that are looking for the light, to see God in creation itself. And many are the hearts that are dying in the night, to see God in creation itself. Come back with me to the South-West to see my God of peace on the campground of life amongst those rocky mountains; stalwart pillars of solemn fortitude, and in the tranquil enduring bliss of silent lake and quiet stream.
-Lift your voices. Can you hear the call of the wild? Can you feel its burning caress of tender love - the driving force of life?
-There are times when I am alone that I can communicate with nature itself, when I sit upon a rock and see the place of which I've dreamed, and know without a single doubt it is exactly as it seemed. The cold bitter wind speaks to me in whispers of intimate love, enveloping and caressing my body. My eyes reflect the awesome power of creation. I am not dying in the night. I am not looking for the light. I have found the light in the South-West. It is the tie that binds me to my Maker.
-===== Notes of the June and July General Meetings =====
-by Barry Wallace
-==== June ====
-There were about 30 members present by 2018, so the President, in the chair, gonged the gong (this time with a wooden spoon, you will all be relieved. to know) and called the meeting to order.
-As is sometimes the way of things there were no apologies and no new members, so we went straight to the reading of the Minutes. This was accomplished with no business arising, so we passed to Correspondence.
-It seems our membership is becoming mobile for there was a spate of change of address notices. Apart from these there was a letter from the Wildlife Preservation Society advising of a three week bus tour to South Australia and environs planned for later this year; and a copy of a letter which Ray Hookway has sent to the N.S.W. Minister for Sport and Recreation supporting the provision of facilities for cross-country skiing in the areas around Kosciusko National Park. The only business arising was deferred to General Business.
-The Treasurer's Report indicated that we began the month with $2005.76, spent $1161.11, earned or otherwise acquired $856.50 and ended up with $1701.1e "Sydney Morning Herald" - see the June issue of the magazine. Then I remembered that, if you go far enough back in the Club's history, you will find stories of members. shooting wild duck on the Kowmung River to supplement the rations they had carried through.the granite gorges higher up.	Oh, yes, and of course one of the early lady members carried a revolver as a protection against marauding males..... not Club members, but the seedy itinerants who
-sometimes took to the bush during the 1930s Depression years.	In spite of the reputed permissiveness of more recent years, no one seems to think such a precaution necessary now. Maybe we really are better behaved after all.
-But even in my time with the Club there have been walkers who were fascinated by the Big Bang. For some years there used to be a regular camp at Euroka Clearing in the Lower Blue Mountains (before there was a road there) on the weekend nearest to the 24th May (which used to be Empire Day - Cracker Night - in the days when there were still some vestiges of a British Empire, my children). All comers brought their catherine wheels and Roman candles, port lights and rockets, and made the Blue Labyrinth resound on the Saturday evening.
-On one occasion a lighted firework, thrown with small regard, for the environment, landed in a cardboard box at the edge of the campfire area. The box contained a selection of rockets, most of which took off on horizontal trajectories. One was alleged to have passed through an abdulled tent, happily without causing damage or injury. Thereafter, our favourite camping site at Euroka was defined in the walks programmes as "Fireworks Ridge".
-In addition to those who were satisfied with commercial fireworks, there were others who liked louder noises. At a camp in 1952 (I think the Club's 25th Anniversary) someone let off an explosive device, occasioning what might be called in modern legal parlance "public affront or alarm. On being told not to do it again, the perpetrators displayed a suitably meek attitude, but countered with a proposal to blow up fallen trees which were causing serious bank erosion at Blue Gum Forest.
-Being at the time the S.B.W. representative on the Blue Gum Trust, I undertook to put the proposal to the Trust. Admittedly, I did so with fingers crossed and uttering a small prayer. However, the idea was readily adopted, and on the weekend of 25/26 April, 1953, the dynamiters went into action. Actually, it was gelignite which was used and, because it is apparently sensitive stuff, it was claimed that some of the party cuddled up to it in their sleeping bags at the top of the Perry's Lookdown track on the Friday night. (Shades of the old drill sergeant rasping "Right! The rifle is the soldier's best friend.	In very cold weather, or if anyone is likely to steal it, you **//will sleep//** with your rifle. After all, you'd sleep with your best friend, wouldn't you?")
-The Blue Gum affair wasn't quite as simple as it sounds. A drill was needed to burrow into the hardened, saturated wood of the partially submerged logs and a chain block was used to shift some Of the more massive lumps of timber. It was reckoned at the time that Colin Putt, who carried the chain block, had a load of nearly 100 lbs -(about 44 kg) on the way down to the forest. I think it was Peter Stitt who carried the petrol-engined drill, and he must have had 75 lbs (33 Kg) on his back.	Several times over the weekend the cry arose "To the hills!" as the 31 workers were cleared from the explosion area. '	.	:
-At one stage on the Sunday morning a rumour spread around "They've poured the jelly down Brian Anderson's shorts". For a time Brian must have wondered if he had halitosis, before it was explained that one of the girls had been trying to make edible jelly, which wouldn't set, and in a moment of devilment had poured the billy down the back of Brian's shorts.
-Honour - or the urge to make a **big bang** - must have been satisfied at Blue Gum. Although we had almost 50 people there for a subsequent working bee in 1955 to consolidate the work on the "silt pack", there were no more loud noises. Our mantle passed to one of the Speliological Societies which was reported in 1955 to be using explosives to form a passage between two natural caves at Bungonia. Being reformed characters, we could afford to chuckle at Geoff Wagg's explanation in one of the Chronic Operas (to the tune of "For he's gone and married Yum Yum" - from The Mikado):-
 | "Oh, we're going to make a big hole, big hole, |
@@ Line 156: / Line 116: @@
 | We've explored every cave that is known, is known, |
-| With din everlasting and drilling and blasting |
+| 7th din everlasting and drilling and blasting |
-| We're making a few of our own..... |
+| We're making .a few of our own |
 As Hamlet says with his last breath "The rest is silence".
@@ Line 163: / Line 123: @@
 ===== Continuing Education Programme, University of Sydney =====
-Over the next few months several courses of lectures, discussions and outings are to be held by the University of Sydney in its Continuing Education Programme. Anyone over the age of 18 may enroll for these courses. Some of these courses may be of interest to people engaged in outdoor activities such as Bush Walking. Further information may be obtained by writing to the University or by phoning 692-2907.
+Over the next few months several courses of lectures, discussions and outings are to be held by the University of Sydney in its Continuing Education Programme. Anyone over the age of 18 may enrol for these courses. Some of these courses may be of interest to people engaged in outdoor activities such as Bush Walking. Further information may be obtained by writing to the University or by phoning 692-2907.
-| **__Birds__** | - 9 meetings $35.00. Tuesdays at 7 pm, commencing 6th September. Classification and distribution of birds, their habitats and breeding behaviour. |
+**__Birds__** - 9 meetings $35.00. Tuesdays at 7 pm, commencing 6th September. Classification and distribution of birds, their habitats and breeding behaviour.
-| **__Bird-Watching Week-End__** | - Oberon:State'Forest, Friday 14th October to Sunday 16th October. Basic accommodation at camps sleeping bags and similar equipment must be brought. Cost-$60.00. |
-| **__Seashore Ecology__** | - 6 meetings $45.00.	Tuesdays at 6 pm, commencing 1st November.	Study of animals and plant of NS.W. Seashore - life history, environments, behaviour and interaction of these organisms. |
+**__Bird-Watching Week-End__** - Oberon:State'Forest, Friday 14th October to Sunday 16th October. Basic accommodation at camps sleeping bags and similar equipment must be brought.	Cost-$60.00.
-| **__Hill End - The Study of a Goldfield__** | - October. Participants make food, accommodation. Study Cost $40.00. Week-end Saturday/Sunday 8/9th own arrangements for transport, of mining developments from 1851. |
-| **__Anthropology - Aboriginal Art__** | - 9 meetings, $30.00. Thursdays 10.30 am from September 8th. Survey of aboriginal rock carvings, painting  and bark art. |
+**__Seashore Ecology__** - 6 meetings $45.00.	Tuesdays at 6 pm, commencing 1st November.	Study of animals and plant of NS.W. Seashore - life hiStorY, environments, behaviour-and interaction of these organisms.
+**__Hill End - The Study of a Goldfield__** - October. Participants make food, accommodation. Study Cost $40.00. Week-end Saturday/Sunday 8/9th own arrangements for transport, of mining developments from 1851.
+**__Anthropology - Aboriginal Art__** - 9 meetings, $30.00. Thursdays 10.30 am from September 8th. Survey of aboriginal rock carvings, painting  and bark art.
 __Congratulations__ to Margaret and Bob Hodgson on the birth of their first child, a daughter,Jennifer Louise, last month.
@@ Line 177: / Line 141: @@
 Let's put our dancing shoes on and get together for the Bushwalkers Ball (it's country dancing, really).
-| Date: | Friday, 23rd September 1983 |
+| Date: | Friday, 23rd Saptember 1983. |
-| Venue: | Lane Cove Town Hall, Longueville Road, entrance in Phoenix Street. Council car park at rear and in Little Street. |
+| Venue: | LANE 'COVE TOWN HALL.
+Longueville Road, entrance in Phoenix Street. Council car park at rear and in Little Street. |
 | Time: | 8 pm |
 | Cost: $7.00 single - B.Y.O. + Plate |
 | Dress: | Casual or semi-formal (whatever you fancy!) |
-| Tickets: | Barbara Bruce - phone bookings 925-2520 (Bus.) or 546-6570 (H).
+| Tickets: |Barbara Bruce - phone bookings 925-2520 (Bus.) or 546-6570 (H)..
-| | Denise Shaw - phone 922-6093 (H) |
+| | Denise Shaw - phone 922-6093.(H). |
 The tickets will also be on sale in the clubroom.
@@ Line 190: / Line 155: @@
 ==== Walks Note ====
-Gordon Lee, following a recent walk in the Budawangs area, reports that Sluice Box Falls on Kilpatrick Creek  are not shown on the new Endrick 1:25000 map in the correct location.
+Gordon Lee, following a recent walk in the Budawangs area, reports that Sluice Box Falls on Kilpatrick Creek, are not shown on the new Endrick 1:25000 map in the correct location.
 ===== Notice =====
-==== Half-Yearly General Meeting ====
+====Half-Yearly General Meeting ====
 __The Sydney Bush Walkers__
@@ Line 218: / Line 183: @@
 No notices of Amendments to the Constitution have been received.
-th August, 1983
+th August, 1983.
+The walkers then packed for a 3-day hike without the benefits of a support vehicle. Pat and Mark shared the main load, consisting of food and tents, for the whole group. I est