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4 : USH WALKING C/ANE/![/A fri L.a 73 N S L. T VOLUME 27 JANUARY 1990 NUMBER 1 COMING ACTIVITIES JANUARY BARBECUE In lieu of a monthly general meeting a Barbeque will be held at the picnic area at Uriarra Crossing on Wednesday JanUary 17. Bring your own food and drinks. People normafly arrive from about 6pm, although there are always a few who arrive earlier than this. Follow the Uriarra Road north west, past Mt Stromlo plantation and turn left into a car park. BEFORE the road crosses the Murrumbidgee River. We hope to have CBC frogs showing the way, like last month. NA11ONAL CLEAN UP DAY - Sunday 21 January 1990 THE NA110NAL FOCUS On 8 January 1989, 40,000 people took part in a Clean Up of Sydney Harbour. Over 5,000 tonnes of rubbish was collected on the day. Other successful Clean Up events have since occurred in major cities around Australia. A Clean Up Australia committee was subsequently formed. On 21 January 1990, the first ever community-driven national clean up of Australia will take place. It is an opportune time for Australians to join together and effectively improve their environment. The media is very interested in assisting in the promotion. As well as radio and newspaper promotions, there will be a national television commercial promoting the day. FM1O4.7 and 2CN will publicise the day on the radio. THE CANBERRA REGION In Canberra, there will be a major Clean Up focussing on the Lakes, and the Murrumbidgee River. There is a possibility that this clean-up can be extended to some of the major creeks and rivers that flow into the Murrumbidgee including Ginninderra Creek and Molonglo River. The Murrumbidgee River is an important natural resource adjacent to Canberra. The River provides recreation opportunities for bushwalkers, swimmers, rockclimbers, picnickers, canoeists and field naturalists. Unfortunately, the area has been devalued by the massive amount of rubbish, including plastic, tin cans, bottles and aerosol cans. This is due to recent flooding where rubbish has been carried down in the flood waters. The main source is from the Tuggeranong stormwater drains and from picnic areas along the river. The ACT Government (including the ACT Parks and Conservation Service, Urban Services and the Environment Protebtion Authority) in coordination with community groups, including member groups of the Conservation Council of Canberra and the South East Region, are working together to undertake a large scale clean up of the ACT including the Murrumbidgee River. The Canberra Bushwalking Club will play a significant role in coordinating the Murrumbidgee River clean up. Other than cleaning up the River, it is anticipated that the event will encourage Canberra residents to value their environment. This will hopefully also encourage residents not to pollute their picnic areas, open space areas and stormwater drains. WHY GET INVOLVED? The National Clean Up day will be the largest community-driven environment event in Australia. There will be 171 Clean Ups around Australia. The media, all levels of Government and various businesses have assured their support for the day. The impact the day will have on cleaning up the environment and also equally important, educating the general public about the environment will be tremendous. Australians can feel good doing something themselves to effectively help their environment. PLANNING FOR THE DAY People can assist in the planning, leading up to the day. On the actual day, site supervisors, and leaders are required to organise volunteers for the Clean Up. There will be a meeting prior to the clean up for all interested site supervisors and leaders to explain the logistics for the day. CANBERRA BUSHWALKING CLUB INVOLVEMENT There will be fifteen key sites to be cleaned up in the ACT. The Conservation Council including this Club will coordinate the cleanup of parts of the Murrumbidgee River, including Uriarra Crossing, Cotter River, Kambah Pool, Pine Island and Point Hut Crossing. Volunteers will clean up around these picnic areas, including scuba diving for underwater rubbish. The Club will also have two leaders to take groups between Kambah Pool and Pine Island through Red Rocks Gorge. People can help to clean up this beautiful area as well as swim and bushwalk. If you would like to assist in the planning and become a site supervisor or would like more information, please contact Sandy Lolicato for details. Telephone 515441(h) 725228(w). PRESIDENTS PRA1TLE On Tuesday night, 19 December 1989, the Club finished off 1989 and the 1990's when over 80 of us and our friends met at Yarralumla Nursery for our annual Christmas Barbeque. For the first time in three years, the rain held off and we all had a great night in most pleasant surroundings. The Great Alpine Trek which was used to herald the opening of Victoria's National Alpine Park, and in which I had the pleasure of representing the ACT, was a great success. Carried out with the cooperation of the relevant Australian Capital Territory and New South Wales departments, the exercise generated heaps of publicity for the new park. As a Canberra 'bushie', I was proud of the support that the Club gave to the exercise, both at the Orroral campground and along the trek, but more of that next month. So with the 1980's over, may this, the first year of the 1990's, be one of health, joy and good bushwalking! 3 PORTRAIT OF A CLIMBER (continued) [Last month's instalment left Osmar dangling at the end of a rope on the Three Sisters; as the "stat' of a film being made by Movietone News.] Eric missed the Australian release of the film but some years later, whilst he and Eleanor were in America (1937) looking at medical procedures, they happened to visit a theatre and saw the antics in a film captioned 'Unusual Sports'. Osmar called to mind memorable climbs such as the traverse of the Three Sisters massif from the valley floor, the ascent of the first Sister up the western face from the valley, Boars Head from the valley, the ascent of Arethusa Falls and Minnehahah Gorge from the Grose Valley, the skyline traverse of Kedumba Point, a number of routes from Megalong to Narrow Neck, and two or three routes up onto the western cliffs to Kings Tableland. They only had one fall. Eric Lowe was standing on a boulder near Nellies Glen when suddenly it came away from the wall. He fell about twelve metres and by sheer good luck landed on the narrow ledge where Dark and Osmar were holding a secondary belay. Fortunately he escaped with only a bruised thigh. 40" The Blue Mountaineers incorporated bushwalking as well as rockclimbing, going as far afield as Barrington Tops. They walked or climbed on most fine weekends in summer and autumn. Occasionally they were called upon to assist the Katoomba police in search and rescue work. At the beginning of the climbing season both Dark and White needed a little time to adjust their sense of balance - Osmar would sit on a cliff and dangle his legs over the edge whilst reading a book. He remembered Eric as "a stylish, strong rock man with gymnastic ability and impressive rhythm". Eric was strongly averse to using ironmongery, and preached the Mummery doctrine that a rope should never be used as an aid to climbing - but solely as a precaution against misjudgment or the accident of rotten rock. The challenge was to pit the physical and mental capacity of the climber against the difficufties of the pitch. "The art was to judge physical ability accurately" (White). The Blue Mountaineers used 32mm yacht manila or heavy sashcord on rock belays. They also had an 'unethical instrument' to place belays in the galleries on Castle Point and on one pitch on the First Sister. This was like a two metre long ice-axe with a deeply curved pick and a notch to hold the rope where the shaft entered the head. They also experimented with a couple of heavy pitons made by the local blacksmith but these were more trouble than they were worth. Eric got his inspiration to visit the Warrumbungles as a young boy of twelve when copies of the Town and Country journal were stuck to the walls of the Mittagong Railway Station. Interestingly, these photos by Judge Docker also caught the attention of another youth - Myles Dunphy who went on to have the area declared a national park. Eventually in the 30s (recorded variously as 1932, 1933 or 1934) the Darks, Eric Lowe and Osmar White travelled to the Warrumbungles. Dark and Osmar succeeded in making the first successful ascent of Belougerie Spire via the West Face. The last hundred and fifty metres were the hardest - vertical exposed climbing with one pitch involving a hundred metre traverse across the face of the mountain along a ledge 30-90cm wide with a sheer rock wall above and a drop of 300 metres below. "On the actual first climb this margin [of safety] was possibly overstepped" (B rant). They also climbed the Tonduron Spire via the South Arete. The crux involved a narrow chimney which both Erics were able to scale. Osmar could not fit through the final section and had to make the ascent from the outside! Osmar recalled Eleanor became jammed "and was unable to move either up or down under her own steam, Dark, Lowe and I heaved mightily on the rope and pulled the distinguished novelist out of her pants. She was not amused'. In October 1935 Dark and Brant returned to investigate the then unclimbed Split Rock (now Crater Bluff).

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