Trip report:
Freshers trip to splendor rock, March 31st - April 1st 2012.
Attending: Ashley, Jo, Eleanor, Helen, Kosta, Barry, Luke, Chris, Yumi, Anne, Kosta and Helen
Based on the number of leeches that attacked me the last time I led a
tripout to
Splendor Rock, Kosta and I decided to put a leech disclaimer in the advert
for the 2012 Freshers Trip. Thanks to the glorious El Nino conditions, the
friendly leeches of Carlons creek have gone forth and multiplied, seemily
beyond any reasonable or polite carrying capasity. Nevertheless, it did not
deter all of our SUBW freshers from heading out a few weekends ago.
We left Sydney Uni on Friday afternoon (having made a quick car re-re-re-shuffle due to last minute pikers, shame on you!!) and merrily met peak Sydney traffic along Parramatta Road. Several hours and several stops later (who buys 15 headtorches?!) we made it out to Dunphy's camp ground and enjoyed some good food and beverages. Jo and Ashley followed shortly with s few more carloads. We spent the night figuring out what gear everyone needed, and double checking that at least one fresher had forgotten to pack their tent poles.
Early the next morning, after some breakfast and morning tea and almost some lunch, we took the fire trail and headed up to Medlow Gap. Ashley destroyed a few cairnes on the way, and we enjoyed some great views of black cockatoos. Shortly along the walking track that eventually leads to yellow dog ridge, we stopped for lunch and water at the base of black horse ridge. At lunch, we exstablished that almost noone in the group was born in Australia (again). Leeches were removed and sentanced by the fundamentalist anti-leech regime run by the 'Seiler foundation: we really DO care for bush dolphins'.
After one or two jaffles too many, we continued along the track and collected water just after Mobbs Swamp. I carried a responsible 9L of water and 2L of 80% flavoured water which strangely enough only just made us through the night (even when Ashley carried about the same up...Thirsty group!). We scrambled up Dingo Hill and out to Splendor Rock in plenty of time to enjoy the sunset over a glass of 87%water and some pre-dinner nibbles.
During the evening we had a roaring fire with many many rounds of the wild west show and the australian national bush anthem at Midnight.
We rose early the next morning to watch a spectacular sunrise - the mist
lying low over the base of the ridges near the cox's river and
splendor rockhanging out spectacularly high above. After another few
hours of sleep we
gobbled up some breakfast and left camp to take the high route home along
Mt Merrigal. We hit up the same lunch spot and finished off as much food as
we could. With storm clouds setting in, we opted for the quick road bash
exit back to Dunphys camp, getting caught out about 2km from the cars in a
pouring rain and thunder storm. Everyone made fantastic time back to the
cars, quickly changing into dry gear and heading to the pub in Lawson.
Thanks to everyone for coming - a really awesome fresher trip this year, and a great bunch of new guys in the club. Hope to see you all back again for some more awesome trips!
--
Helen Margherita Smith
46 Waterloo Road, North Epping 2121, Sydney, NSW
Home: 02 97986206 Mob: 0432832698
Note: Australian Dialing code is +61, just drop the first zero of my numbers