While everyone’s rushing to work on a busy Monday morning, four lucky people (James Bucknell, Sarah Hicks, Aaron Nguyen and myself) were setting off for a relaxing time in the bush. We drove up Putty Road and arrived at Howes Valley at around 12:30pm, so we decided to have lunch first. As soon as we stepped out of the car, we were welcomed by hundreds of flies (especially after Sarah and I opened our tins of tuna). I haven’t seen so many flies for a while.
The alarm went off at 2:30am but I didn’t sleep, two coffees the day before made sure of that.To increase my chances of staying awake I had another one before we left. By 3am Andrew, Cat and Myself were in the car, skis and all heading south along King St. I was drugged up ready and to drive the first leg down to Michelago. Initially, the lack of sleep wasn’t an issue, Bogong moths constantly exploding on the windscreen kept me awake and entertained. However, near Canberra my vision started to get blurry. Combination of tiredness and the fact that I ran out of water for the windscreen wipers. At Michelago drivers were changed and I didn’t wake up until Rhythm Sports in Cooma. Even though the store was open the lady behind the counter couldn’t help and had no idea when or even IF someone that could help us would be coming. Bakery was the next natural stop. We conveyed the message to the other car and I chose the most obvious landmark to meet up. Minutes passed, no call, no car. Would you believe there is more than one Woolworths yet no 3 phone service in Cooma? Luckily, Bruce at Wilderness Sports in Jindabyne was happy to see us and after a couple of jokes and a $240 worth of equipment we were finally ready to head up the mountain.
Party: Martine Bardy, James “many nicknames” Bevan*, Jo Boyd#, Ashley Burke, Marina Carpinelli, Sabrina “Sabs” Cascio, Peter ____, Nazzih Chammas, Albert Chetcuti, Alicia Corbett, Alex Debono, Meredith Dodds, Dave “Digidave” Forbes, Marcelle Gannon*, Swetlana “Lana” Gez, Tom “Other Other Tom” Gleeson#, Rachel Green, Pete Harvey*, Rob Hynes, Mitchell “Mitch” Isaacs, Yves Kerdraon*, Jademond Kiang*, Jeff Kingston, Ben Kong*, Dave “Fritz” Lee, Roger Lembit, Tina Ludwig, Kim ____, Tom Mactier, Tom “Other Tom” Murtagh, Maria-Cristina Merlo, David “D2” Millar-Powell, Stefanie Muller, Dave Noble, Martin Pfeil, Peter Raines, Ricarda Roemer, Daniel “VP Dan” Ryan, Cameron Schmelitschek*, Nicole St Vincent Welch*
Party – A mixture of SUBW’ers and friends from indoor climbing – John, Chuin Nee, Dave F, Martin, Steffy, Kim, Mitch, Dan, Alicia, Jo, Dave N and also Ashley and Kendy joined us at the campsite
The three of us started out a bit after 9am in the wrong spot somewhere on Megalong Rd, so we just followed some track I found in the street directory and used a bit of good ol “well the sun rises in the east, right, so this way is probably south” to meetup with the 6FT. I’ll be imprecise here due to the perpetual nature of information on the internet – lets just say our eventual route involved getting yelled at by an old lady.
The initial plan was to do a loop from Govetts Leap, down Braeside Trail, through Grand Canyon and back via Cliff Top track, assuming that the tracks in this area would not be affect by the previous bushfire. But I was too optimistic. Just about 200m down Braeside Trail, there’s a “No Entry” sign. We were very tempted to ignore it, but after considering insurance issues and the $350 pp fine if caught, we turned back.
Desperate to get out of Sydney and away from all the APEC nonsense we drove all the way to Island Bend on Thursday night, stopping only in Cooma to hire skis for those that needed them. It was well after midnight by the time we rolled into the camping area to snatch a few hours sleep.
Everyone was successful in catching the train, except Sophie and I. We managed to miss the train at Glenbrook by 23.5687 nano seconds. So we ended up driving to Woodford and caught the train back after the ride.
It was about 12:45am on Saturday morning when we rolled into the Island Bend camping area after a smooth drive down from Sydney. Considering it was still the middle of winter, it was unusually warm. Jiri and Cat bunked down in their tent while I rolled out my sleeping bag in the back of the car for the remainder of the night.
The plan: Walk down as many steps as possible, then walk back up them all again! This trip isn’t so much about ‘walking’ in the bush as it is admiring the ridiculous tracks that have been built in the area, most just hanging off the side of the cliffs.