Takes you places!
After much talking and planning the first two water tanks of the Warren Bonython Memorial Water Tanks Project have been installed. The first was placed at Mainwater Well in the Gammon Ranges and the second at Yudnamutana mine site on Mt Freeling Station.
This report describes my eight day walk in the Sequoia National Park, California as well as how to get there as a solo traveller. The attraction of the park is that it is the home of the giant Sequoias trees which I have wanted to see for a long time, has a wide variety of walking trails that connect with long distance walking trails like the Pacific Crest Trail, John Muir Trail and the High Sierra Trail and is easily accessible from Los Angeles or San Francisco.
There is a familiar saying ‘if something can go wrong, eventually it will go wrong’. As Mark has said in his water tanks article in this edition I went with him last October to the Northern Flinders so that some final additions could be made to the two water tanks that he and other ABW members had installed there a bit earlier in the year.
I decided to put pen to paper to capture scenes and memories from some of the best bushwalks I have ever done in Australia. Without doubt, doing these sketches has given me an immense amount of pleasure, and I hope readers of this magazine enjoy them too, particularly those who know these places.
The idea of trekking in the Sumatran jungle and visiting Lake Toba had been on my ‘bucket list’ for years. I had found very little information on the internet, it seemed few people trekked there for any more than three days. In the end I opted for a commercial trek with Expedition Jungle who offered a seven day trek across the Gunung Leuser National Park from Semadam in Aceh to Bukit Lawang in North Sumatra. Eight ABW club members joined up.
Spring nights are getting shorter and warmer, so you are more likely to want to stay up to view the delightful spring sky. You will still need to warm clothing when you walk away from the campfire to catch our spring gems, but they are worth it. This spring starts with all five bright planets lined up in the evening sky although Jupiter and Mercury are soon lost to view. There is lots of good planetary viewing for most of spring. For the early risers, there is a penumbral eclipse of the Moon mid-September.
The “Wollz” was a vernacular term coined by Paul Godfrey to shorten the “Wallpolla”, an intricate, interlacing system of waterways just upstream from Lock 9, and south of the main Murray River (downstream from Mildura/ Wentworth). There is a boatramp with sandy edges just east of the Lock, and only a short paddle to enter the maze of creeks. The first creek is the Mullroo that takes off north after a major lagoon system. This twists and winds and has various blind ending offshoots before joining the Wallpolla Ck. Trevor Moyle was the other member of the exploratory team and had spotted the waterways on a topo map.
What a wonderful adventure a small group of ABW members had in the Greater Blue Mountains World Heritage Area where there are basically no trails but instead, an adventure playground for the fit, the cautious and the astute navigator. We returned scratched, battered and bruised so must have had a good time with a few of those “this looks doable moments” from the boys which equated to “what am I doing here” moments for me!
Walking in Bateman’s Bay a couple of years ago a self-confessed ecologist opened his back pack to show me its contents. It was full of rubbish. He pulled out a can and explained that wherever he was in the world, he always carried a bag and picked up any rubbish he came across so as to leave any place he visited in better condition than before he came.
I am constantly being asked if I like my Aarn Pack and why I like it. My response is, “I love my Aarn Pack and would never go back to a conventional pack”. Not one to write formal reviews I felt it is time to enlighten the unenlightened and I say that without prejudice because here in South Australia we have very little exposure to the product being the only state lacking a retail outlet for Aarn Packs.
The final frontier… starts at your feet! I have to agree. There has never been a more exciting time to be a light-weight bushwalker. Gone are the days of the heavy and cumbersome canvas packs and huge and bulky tents. The quality and technology of even the humble sleeping mattress has finally reached space-age status with the application of high-tech lightweight materials and special insulation coatings.
These days, we are surrounded by excellent technical resources – both material and informational – ...
A campervan trip around Tasmania was the catalyst for my joining ABW. After several days of hiking near Cradle Mountain with some friends there was talk of the Overland Track and I thought that sounded like a great goal to aim for. I did some research and decided that ABW looked like the best group to join to work towards my goal whilst enjoying some of the walks available around South Australia as well. My first club walk was the new member’s weekend in Kuipto.
I joined ABW in May 2015 with previous experience camping and hiking, albeit very separate activities. Turning the big ‘4-0’ prompted me to set a new personal challenge and as I sat in the cinema watching ‘Wild’, I decided overnight hiking was going to be my new ‘thing’. I started trawling the internet for a hiking group abundant with good looking, successful, well dressed 40 year old single males ….but I found ABW instead.
Renowned art photographer, Harold Cazneaux, probably is best known in South Australia for his 1937 photograph of a large old river red gum near Wilpena Pound. Cazneaux titled the photo “Spirit of endurance”. Since 1991 when Cazneaux’s grandson, Dick Smith, funded a plaque on site, the location of the tree near Wilpena Creek has been easy to find.