CANBERRA BUSH WALKING CLUB INC NEWSLETTER GPO Box 160, Canberra ACT 2601 VOLUME 31 JANUARY 1995 NUMBER I This barbecue again replaces the normal monthly meeting. We'll. meet under the huge Casuarinas at Uriarra Crossing - East side. Follow the mad to Uriarra Crossing but turn off to the left before you reach the Crossing. Look for Club signs but if they're not in evidence, JANUAFZV FAREECILIE just look around ti/I you find us. WJ44Iaap1 f,tnøs 4 tI4Lat4iat C4e44.1 Wood fuelled barbecues are available and the temperature should be good for swimming. Bring your own everything - plates, cutlery, food drink, and swimming costume. K For further information phone ia A1 Maurice Wicks on 258 8880 (hi. PRESIDENT'S PRATFLE A HAPPY 1995 to all our members and theft families. Now is the time for those resolutions! Like leading your first, fifth or umpteenth walk, like adopting an area of park near you and keeping it clean, or just participating more actively in all the Club's activities. One of the things I wanted to achieve whilst President was to find a home for our small library. We have now been given permission by the Dickson Library to use the cupboards in the meeting room. During the summer months a number of members meet at Kambah Pool on Monday evenings. We share tea and swim. Please feel free to join us. It's a very ad hoc arrangement. Paul and I are holidaying at Kangaroo Island and catching up with family in Adelaide. We are walking from winery to winery. What decadence! See you when we return. Janet Edstein TRIP REPORT: THE RAMSHEAD RANGE - 5-6 NOVEMBER 1994 The time had come: should we have breakfast? - of course NO! Should we attend morning church service? - of course NO! Should we debate what LEADER Richard Bain action should now be taken? YES!! Hang on a PARTY: Roger Beddis, Rino, Maurice & Carol second, it's cold out here! Damn stupid author, SITUATION REPORT he's writing this in a nice warm office on a PC back 6 AM Sunday 6 November: High velocity in Canberra, he should get back to the plot. wind, bent tent poles, several billion snow flakes ERROR MESSAGE 101 - PC MEMORY UNABLE upon the ground, sub-zero temperatures, TO COMPUTE. TRY RE-ENTERING WITH members still alive, Roger eating fruit and still, no IF NOT, TERMINATE SESSION WITH USER. frostbite. RE-ENTERING, NO - PLEASE CONTINUE THE NARRATIVE (Part 2) Now with a dear mandate from the PC's memory, As I LAY in the tent, I pondered upon the previous it was really time for action, on the move again days events, the pie shop in Cooma, the pastry- with dear orders not to walk in front of the leader. cum-coffee shop in Jindabyne and of course, the coffee shop in the railway station, which has no Some time later, on an icy windy road with trains! This last entry caused a serious Maurice and me hanging onto Carol, Roger and malfunction of the brain's information retrieval Rino were off to Smiggins Holes to collect one of system: how does a railway station have a coffee the cars. The weather could be described as shop but not have a train in it? I pondered further tropical - that is, as long as you come from about this most linhisilal Kiwiland!! Now one might event in the space time ask why the two mentioned continuum, not to mention were holding onto Carol. It the fact that a blizzard had had appeared to me that the been put upon us by a not so concept was a bit odd, of happy God, probably upset reporting to the authorities by missing the last train. that a bushwalker was lost, Not to let this get to me, I last seen flying though the air slipped my warmly toasted (in the high velocity wind!) - feet into the hell of wet but hence the requirement to save partially frozen morning Carol from a Shakespearian footwear, commonly referred tragedy. to as boots. Lonely disused railway At the base of Maurice's tent I stations, cold wet stood. The words that bushwallcers and of course, greeted me were could you the coffee shop. As I got into please bail me out of the tent? I my xth cup of coffee, peered into the tent to see watching the snow slide off Maurice adrift his thermarest in a sea of melted the buildings, tension mounted in the absence of snow. The next face was Carol's, only to greet me Rino and Roger, who were looking for cars. What with when are we leaving? I had a distinct feeling could have happened? Were they living it up at that things were not happy with my colleagues. Charlottes Pass Hotel or even worse, lost in the The trainless railway station seemed to become a blizzard? Well it turns out that car tyres don't more credible realization as the snow engulfed grip too well to ice and snow, hence only after our adventure. borrowing some chains was success achieved, and The orders were posted - be ready to move at the coffee then flowed. 0730 hrs Kilo time jTranslat ion from military jargon: Local time - Ed.) SITUATION REPORT: - SUNDAY AFTERNOON Fruit was flavour of the month in Roger's tent. Rino just looked confused somewhat - (1) that he No frosthite, overdosed on caffeine, all alive and was still alive, and (2) should we really be well. Went home, no more coffee, no more snow. moving? Richard Bain P CBC It January 1995 page 2 • Curry Evening I Walks Planning Evening Monday 20 February, 6:30pm onwards - at Alan and Sue Vidler's home 56 Woolner Circuit, Hawker - 254 5373(h) This is your chance to keep our great Activity Program rolling. New leaders who emerged at the last, very successful, Walks Planning evening can now share their experience and encourage other members to think about leading walks. We have lots of suggestions of easily navigable walks. Time to pore over the Club's extensive map library and exchange walking experiences. All welcome even ifyou don't intend to lead trip& Contact by phone (includes an answering machine), mail, fax, email, (carrier pigeon, smoke signal ... ) also welcome at any time before, during or after the event. BYO Curry (or..), or come around 8pm for discussions and planning. Condiments, maps, ideas etc provided LEn ER TO THE EDITOR EDITOR'S RESPONSE The evil that MEN do lives afterthern; the good is oft interred with their bones ... MAN does not live by RECENTLY, IN AN idle moment, whilst bread alone .... Theres a certain ring to these, dont browsing through IT, my eyes fell upon the you agree? NOTICE TO ALL WALKERS: The leader Political correctness isa pain in the butt humankind (when you HAVE to avoid mankind,), fisherpeople etc. should check ... He may assess ... He should also check Some relatively new, sex-neutral words like flight attendants (instead of stewards and hostesses) may well be an improvement I say sex-neutral rather What quaint, old-fashioned language is than gender-neutral because we only have sex in this? I mused. I checked out the leaders: Janet, English: if we were speaking Russian or French There'd be no issue, Rosemary, Sue, Christine, Jill, Sylvia, Rene. Not a as we'd use the personal pronoun appropriate to the graninatical gender of the leader (masculine in both!), though if we were talking bad line-up of the female sex, I thought; surely about a sentry in French/ia sentinelloJ the pronoun would be feminine!! they deserve some recognition for being there; do It may well be a pity, but the fact is our language IS male-dominated. they really enjoy being referred to as he? M' own surname ends in MAN. It's just too bad English doesn? work like lcelandic, where your wrname ends in -SSON or -DOTI1R - but My mind fell to constructing alternative even then, tacked onto your father's name! I was Executive Officer to expressions: the Mining Working Group on Eco!oglcal!y Sustainable Development during 1991 and told The 'Chair' that he looked no more like a chair • the rather clumsy he or she; alternatively she or than a table. EEQ and all the verbiage that goes with it shouldn't have or (but you get fouled up on her or him); to depend on rules or procedures - the princ4ole has to be internalized he; s/he or it doesn't exist. • the gender-neutral they; The trouble seems to occur because people distinguish between literary and spoken English. If one of us were speaking • she one month and he the next (let's see how the conversationally about what a leader has to do, I doubt if the speaker fellas like being referred to by the opposite sex (there, I've avoided saying lie'lJ would assiduously check the sex of pronoun); our subject each time! It's much like the plague of offIcialese which has stuffed up The spoken language of people who make their IMng * she for a whole year! from a desk: how many people can no longer use something, but only utilize it; and can? ever e,q,ed something, only say 'it is anticipated? • try the declamatory style, and address the Of course the contribution of competent and excellent leaders like you, leaders in the second person: Leader, have you Meg, is very much valued. I wish more trips were led by female checked ..., or, since we seem to be into archaic leaders instead of the only 8 in the December program as against 61 language: Leader, hast thou checked .