Date: 3-6/10/2025
Trip leader: Adam H
Party: Adesh, Ashley, Daniel, Dhruv, Kosta, Lukas, Ngiak, Paul G, Paul M, Stefan, Tracy, Terry (Wing Chun)
The President’s Bludge Trip first began as a club tradition in 1974 when a party of 6 led by then-president Steve Williamson ventured down to the Kowmung River to enjoy a bludge along its pristine grassy flats. 51 years later, and the October long weekend still sees a party of SUBWians make the annual pilgrimage for a most relaxing escape filled with jaffles, formal attire, wild west show verses, and campfire games that put lobotomies to shame.
For the past few years the tradition of the PBT has been a little bit rocky. In 2020 it was impacted by park closures, in 2021 it was impacted by COVID, and in 2023 & 2024 the Vice President has taken on the all important role of leading the PBT. Further, the massive 2019-20 bushfire season and ensuing floods in what feels like every year since, has made access to the Kowmung rather difficult. Days 1 and 3 of the trip now see us pushing through fairly dense regrowth along very faint tracks. Naturally, with a tradition running long enough, this kind of variation is normal and expected. However, this year I hope marks a bit of a return to relative normality on the great tradition of the President’s Bludge Trip.
Day 1 of the walk begins from the Kanangra Walls Lookout carpark and heads up along the “Plateau Walk”, turning off at Gingra Range to Coal Seam Cave.
It’s incredibly scenic and some of the best views in the mountains. It was nearby that we met another group intending to spend their long weekend along the Kowmung, albiet with our night 2 location as their night 1.
The first 5km to Coal Seam Cave was very nice walking; open views, not too hot, and a clear track. The same cannot be said about the ensuing 300m. From the cave, we were officially on Gingra Track and as it traverses around the base of Cottage Rock the faint track is covered with thick head-high scrub and a number of fallen trees to climb over all while on loose soil on the edge of a slope.
That section was decidedly the worst section of track we encountered throughout the weekend. This designation is of course in retrospect, something about that section on the way back up had me uttering “this too shall pass” to myself. It may have actually been comparable to the rest of the track, but of course how we’re feeling at the time taints our judgement. The excellent news is it’s relatively short!
All things considered, Gingra Track is not in a particularly awful state. While we did lose the track a handful of times, the scrub was not so thick that it was impenetrable. Certainly doable even if it’s guaranteed to leave you with endless cuts and thorns. Gaiters and long sleeves wouldn’t have been a bad idea.
We reached Second Top shortly before lunchtime, and began our descent down Roots Ridge. Roots is in a very similar state to Gingra, there is certainly a track and it was easy enough to lose but nevertheless a track. The thickest of the scrub comes and goes, and it was in one of the more open patches that we stopped for lunch just after 1pm.
By 4pm we had reached the mighty Kowmung and it was time to find a campsite. We headed downstream in hopes that the campsites marked on Ashley’s topo from pre-fires were still in fact campsites.
3 river crossings later, and the gamble paid off as the campsite still existed and the president gets to keep his head another day. Slowly but surely, the back of the troop led by Terry arrived and everyone was at camp and set up by 6pm.
With a retelling of the purple feather and a round of Daniel’s kava behind us, it was time to sleep on this bludge day eve.
Day 2 of the PBT is where the PBT gets its name from, it is a day to bludge along the Kowmung with lots of swimming and river crossings along the way. We had the whole day to walk the 5km along the riverbank to Orange Bluff. This means an hour lunch break, a couple of prolonged swim breaks and other luxuries not usually afforded on a leg of a multiday walk.
We’d started walking at about 10:30 and spent about 4hrs walking the mere 5km distance. Unequivocally a bludge, and a great one at that. It’s made even more special by the fact that despite being a long weekend, the only other sign of human life we saw that day was 1 person fishing for trout along the river. It’s unclear what happened to the group we saw on day 1, perhaps they went upstream after reaching Orange Bluff or turned back due to the scrub. In any case, no signs of rescue were heard so they must have been ok.
The water at Orange Bluff is not particularly deep so it’s not great for a proper swim. Certainly not as great as the other places we had stopped along the way, but a few of us could still be found there freezing and discussing future walks.
Once again it was a great night by the campfire chatting away and torturing new victims of the spoon campfire game which those who have. Courtesy of Kosta, a new mind numbing campfire game has been added to my repertoire that is sure to torture freshers for years to come.
Day 3 was fairly unremarkable. It was slow going & hot. Not much to write home about, but with a great couple of days with great company behind us, it made it feel worth it.
Everyone was back at the cars and on their way back to civilisation by 4pm.
Whether it was your 39th PBT or your 1st, thank you to all who came along. What a fantastic tradition the PBT is and what a fantastic weekend it led to and will continue to be for many years to come.
