Did you enjoy your canyons this sum-

mer? I did. And I did lots and lots of

them. Well it felt that way, with the

scratches, bruises, aches and pains

that told me I’ve been having fun.

What I really enjoyed was going out

with a mix of old friends and new. I re-

visited old favourites like Hat Hill and

North Bowens. I revisited David Cre-

vasse which I last did 20 years ago to

learn why I only do that one every 20

years. I explored a couple I hadn’t done

before like Blue Drum creek with Joy,

and Death Trap. And they were all

great. Even the scrub bashing, scary

scrambles and big hills on the exits. I

enjoyed every last one.

And what better way to celebrate mid-

dle aged birthdays than going out for a

weekend of canyon fun and instituting a

“Birthday girls and boys don’t carry

ropes” rule?

And it got me thinking about how lucky

we are in this club to have such a keen

pool of canyoners who are willing to:

Invest time and effort in training

up others (thanks to all of those

who have trained me)

Be trained up and make sure

they have good skills before they

come on trips (thanks to every-

one who has put up with me

training them!)

Share their experience and take

us on new adventures (thanks to

all you leaders – oops! Co-

ordinators)

Wait for us slow and cautious

people to catch up

Help us lousy climbers on the

tricky bits

Carry the 60m ropes up the hill

Come on my trips knowing they

have to put up with my bad sense

of humour and happy dance back

at the cars

Us canyoners are very lucky to have

found each other. There is always a

group of people willing to go out and

play – more often than not the trips are

over-full and we have to say no to

some.

And it only costs membership and $5 a

trip. Unbelievable when you consider a

commercial trip down many of our fa-

vourite Blue Mountains canyons will set

you back $220 – $260. You certainly

couldn’t go canyoning every week if

that’s what it cost you!

Also see Lynda’s pics of Deep Pass from

7/11/15 on Page 6.

2016 No. 1 AUTUMN

BANKSTOWN BUSHWALKING CLUB INC. THE OUTDOORS CLUB THAT DOES IT ALL!

Reflections on THIS SEASONS

CANYONS By Lynda Paju Canyoning 2015 1

President’s Piece 2

Lewins’ Honeyeater 2

Manly to North Head 3

Oaks Fire Trail 3

Coogee to Bondi 4

Is the GPS lying? 4

Mt. Tomah 5

Club Info 6

New members 6

Deep Pass 6

Snippets 7

Inside this issue:

Club email address:

bankstownbush@gmail.com

Postal address:

PO Box 7061,

Mt. Lewis NSW 2190

Phone no.:

(02) 9773 9141

All opinions and recommenda-

tions contained in this maga-

zine are the individual authors’

alone, and do not constitute

official endorsement by the

executive or members of the

Bankstown Bushwalking Club

Inc.

Hello all

Over the last 2 programs it has been great to see a couple of new and newish members put up their hand and volunteer to lead trips. To Rod, Margaret, Shannon, Kshitij and Kev—the Walks Committee says a big thank you.

Without “activity coordinators” we won’t have a pro-gram and without a program we won’t have a Club. Remember, the Walks Committee exists to compile each program for you, the members, with the mix of activities presented spread nicely over that program. It is not their job to lead the activities (although many also lead multiple trips). Any member can put on a trip and Walks is always happy to receive and/or discuss your thoughts. So if there is something you’d like to do, pick a date and send it through to Walks. Or, if you are unsure about what or how to do that give one of them a call. They are always hap-py to offer suggestions and advice. And a variety of leaders and activities is a good thing for everyone.

And while I’m on this topic, a few stats you may find interesting.

The Club has approx 120 members.

The 2015 Summer program had 16 different leaders leading 29 activities. (brilliant)

The 2016 Autumn program has 14 different leaders leading 27 activities. (thank you)

A Lewin’s Honeyeater set itself up in a nest it made in a camellia bush at the front corner of my house last November (2015).

It used all sorts of bits of stuff for its nest - both natu-ral and man-made. It was at my head height so I was able to check on progress through many weeks and various weather conditions.

Eventually 3 eggs were laid and 2 hatched during the hot weather.

However, as has happened previously when a grey shrike-thrush set itself up in a pot plant in my front porch, all evidence of the parents and baby birds disappeared one day, when I think they were too young to be flying - their eyes had barely opened and they only had down and the beginnings of some sturdier feathers.

I’ll never know what happened to them, but the nest is still attached to the branches of the camellia and they may return to re-use it next year. I hope so.

P A G E 2

Each program of 3 months has an average of 12 weekends. (3x4)

Each weekend has 2 days available for an activity, so 12 x 2 = 24 days.

(But as you can deduce from above there are more activities than days, with weekend trips and more than 1 trip on some days)

Unfortunately, in each of the last 2 programs there have been 3-4 days without an activity.

Therefore Walks have only had suggestions for, say, 20 of the available days.

Being rotten at Maths I hope the following is sorta correct:

Say an average of 15 leaders = 1 in 8 or less than 20% of the membership volunteers to lead an activi-ty. And of those 15, 5 or 6 lead multiple times i.e. 33% of that 20%.

We lead because we want to, though extra assis-tance is always wonderful.

As I noted above a variety of leaders and activities is a good thing.

Can you set aside 1 day out of 12 or so weekends in every 3 months to volunteer to coordinate an activi-ty? If yes, Walks would love to hear from you.

Mike

El Pres (for the moment)

B U S H T E L E G R A P H

A rather hot mother bird.

Lewin’s Honeyeater B y T h a ï s T u r n e r

President’s Piece B y M i k e R o b i n s o n

Mum doing her duty despite the heat.

The 3 eggs.

After days of storms and flash flooding, mother nature decided to put on a glorious day for our walk from Manly to North Head.

We trudged our way through the heat and humidity, making our way back to Manly wharf for a well deserved ice cream.

On 9 Aug 2015 my often repeated ride on the Oaks Fire

Trail went ahead once again, after a few other times being

cancelled for some reason or other.

Paul and Matthew (new member, from Port Macquarie,

who likes to get out and about when he’s in Sydney) came

along on a hot sunny day.

Paul had an ulterior motive—he’s a really keen geocacher

and wanted to log the geocache beside the track halfway

along.

We had some fun on the singletrack / MTB track at the end.

P A G E 3

Manly to North head b y S h a n n o n S i m o n i t

Oaks Fire trail B y T h a ï s T u r n e r

N O . 1 2 0 1 6 A U T U M N

On 6 Nov 2015 a few club members (plus some family members) walked from Coogee to Bondi along the coastal path with the aim of looking at the Sculptures by the Sea exhibition along the way. It was a very hot sunny day to start with. I realized as we went past Clovelly that it would be a better starting point in future years.

Halfway along we witnessed the most amazing storm clouds over the ocean, any of us has ever seen. Most peo-ple lost interest in the sculptures and watched and photo-graphed the storm. It advanced towards us with clouds rolling upwards and downwards like waterfalls.

The rain began when we were on the headland and we were quite drenched by the time we got to Bondi where we found shelter at the Icebergs swimming pool complex, but we had a good time and saw some amazing sculptures, some whimsical, some serious, some defying description.

Look out for next year’s walk. We’ll start off at Clovelly (free parking I think).

There’s also another type of exhibition called Sculpture at Scenic World in amongst the rainforest walk at Katoomba from early April to early May if you prefer the cooler cli-mate.

AGD66 and AGD84 are the datums that older maps were printed with. Before the introduction of GDA94, AGD66 was used in NSW, Victoria, Tasmania, and the NT. Meanwhile, Queensland, SA and WA mostly used AGD84. These two datums are almost identical for the purposes of bushwalking - differing by about 5 metres or less. GDA94 (aka GDA or MGA) is the new datum which current and future maps will be produced with. This datum produces coordinates which differ by about 200 metres from both AGD66 and AGD84. To convert grid references from AGD66 (old) to GDA94 (new), a rough rule of thumb is to add 1 to the easting part and add 2 to the northing part. E.g. GR 717255 in AGD66 is GR 718257 in GDA94.

For more detail on this take a look at this information on Anthony Dunk’s web site http://www.diamondspirit.net/adunk/MapsAndDatums.html.

Anthony is an experienced bush walker and the au-thor of a couple of guides to walking in the Colo Riv-er area.

As people are starting to trust their GPS readings too much without thinking first, Lynda offers the following info to help: There has been occasional confusion on a few trips about the GPS readings people have taken and how they relate to the map. But this is probably just con-fusion caused by using the incorrect datum. A da-tum is a standard position or level that measure-ments are taken from. It’s really important to have the same datum programmed into your GPS, as the map you are using. If it isn’t you are going to be con-sistently around 200m out whenever you take a reading. And in some cases that’s a big deal! Australian topographic maps over the years have used several different datums. The same physical position can have different grid references in differ-ent datums, so it’s important to know which datum the map you are using is produced with.

P A G E 4 B U S H T E L E G R A P H

IS that GPS lying to you? B y L y n d a P a j u

Coogee to Bondi (Sculpture by the Sea) B y T h a ï s T u r n e r

A good group of walkers (11 hardy souls) ventured out in the overcast conditions and threatening rain to Mt. Tomah on Saturday 6 Feb 2016. These were walkers from 2 different clubs. We mix and mingle well in the spirit of a shared interest in all things to do with walking activities, as well as outdoors pursuits, environment, vegetation, flora, and fauna.

After collecting a walker from the train at Richmond in the sunshine, we found the fog and mist increasing as we headed up to the higher climes. Mt. Tomah is 1000 metres above sea level. The fog drifted off for some periods giving us views over the far hills and mountains, and the rain started and stopped several times.

We were lucky to have a volunteer guide who was only too happy to give the group a guided tour of the upper parts of the gardens – the formal garden, food garden, Brunet’s garden, rock garden, Wollemi pine, residence garden, all of which have a fascinating his-tory. There were glorious blooms to greet us around every turn, and the photographers amongst us had no shortage of subjects.

Before lunch we got the best of the conditions that day. After lunch the rain really set in so we looked at the Visitor Centre displays, geological data, video clips showing canyoning, and the Birds from Life mini art exhibition.

We’ve now seen this cool climate garden in so many conditions and seasons, there’s only Autumn to go. We might even stay at the Jungle Lodge (a B&B) inside the complex next time around. Who’s interest-ed?

P A G E 5

Blue Mountains Botanic Garden at Mt. tomah B y T h a ï s T u r n e r

N O . 1 2 0 1 6 A U T U M N

The following new members have joined our club

recently. A friendly welcome to you all.

Raghad Al Hakim

Sean and Liam Wright

& Mariana Noricga

Shanika Vithanag & Mohan Rawat

Abdul Zaitoun

To Lien Tran

Vickii Micet

Georges Hall Community Centre 188 Birdwood Road

Georges Hall NSW 2198

Club email address: bankstownbush@gmail.com

Deep Pass—pics from 7 Nov 2015 B y L y n d a P a j u

Contributions to this newsletter are always welcome & can be emailed to Thaïs.

Deadline for Winter issue is: Fri May 6th, 2016

Meetings coming up in 2016: March 14th—AGM! April 11th May 9th

We’re on the Web!

http://

www.bankstownbushwalkingclub.

org.au

CLUB MEETINGS EVERY MONTH

USUALLY HELD ON 2ND MONDAY OF MONTH—

EXCEPT JANUARY

P A G E 6 B U S H T E L E G R A P H

NEW MEMBERS

N O . 1 2 0 1 6 A U T U M N P A G E 7

From Kerrie McLean:

Michael Keats was awarded an OAM in the General Division of the Order of Australia for services to bushwalking and as an author. He has a website for those who would like to learn more about Michael,

Brian Fox and Yuri Bolotin - it is www.bushexplorers.com.au

From Lynda Paju:

If you need some inspiration for walks you could lead check out the Clubs walking guides and map collec-tions (which Thaïs brings to each meeting) or else have a look at: http://wildwalks.com/

This one is a really good graphic of the route up Mt Everest so that you can really visualise all the bits you’ve read about, or see how the sections you’ve seen in movies fit together to make the whole climb.

http://everestavalanchetragedy.com/mt-everest-journey.html

Have a look at the following website to see some great footage of the daredevils who were slacklining 100m above Kanangra Falls in early January this year: https://vimeo.com/148754321

From Shannon Simonit:

Reminding all club members that a group climbs every Wednesday at Villawood at the Sydney Indoor Climbing Centre starting approx 6pm. Nearest train station is Villawood Station. Beginners welcome. Climbs are graded easy to hard, and you only need to go as high as you are comfortable with. There will always be someone to belay you from the group, so don't wait, join us this week! Good strength, tech-nique and practice for the canyoning, caving, scrambling, climbing, abseiling trips that the club puts on regularly.

From Thaïs Turner:

Many exciting films are showing now or soon: Ocean Film Festival (Feb/Mar); ‘On the Rocks with Monique and Simon (rockclimbing and rockclimbing photography by the world’s best, presented by World Expeditions—Thur 18 Feb); ‘Sherpa’ presented by the Australian Himalayan Foundation (fundraiser for earthquake recovery in Nepal—Sun 21 Feb); Banff Mountain Film Festival (see club program—Thur 5 May).

Check out the new Tread Softly Code from Bushwalking Victoria http://www.bushwalkingvictoria.org.au/

Be prepared for bushwalks—we are again being urged by the Blue Mountains Police who attend rescues too regularly to stay safe in the bush and to make proper preparations. Just before Christmas 2015, 2 men were treated for dehydration and a teen rescued following a fall. One of the easiest preparations the Police advise is to download the free Emergency+ app to your Smartphone.

Kangaroo Island Wilderness Trail is opening in early January 2016. 12 independent walkers will be able to start each day. The 63 km trail takes 5 days, starting at Flinders Chase NP Visitor Centre going anti-clockwise along the coast (Southern area) to finish at Kelly Hill Caves.

And if you are really into long walks, New Zealand has a beauty. The Te Araroa walk from Cape Reinga on the North Island to Bluff on the South Island is 3068 km long and takes about 5 months, according to an intrepid soul who completed it in 2015.

A National Koala Count happened in November 2015 and may happen again next year. Help out the counters at koalacount.org.au and use the NatureMapr to record sightings.

Keep track of turtles in November as well. Get the TurtleSAT app for your phone. Western Sydney Uni co-ordinates the study.

SNIPPETS Compiled by Thaïs Turner