Volume 33 Issue 4 Camp above Bluff Tarn, Kosciusko National Park Spring 2008 Rolling Grounds above Whites River Hut, Kosciusko National Park Photo: Bruce McKinney Contributions of interesting, especially typical and spectacular bushwalking photos are sought. you don’t want the same photographers all the time, do you? What’s for Dinner? Riley’s Paddock, west of Finchley Trig, Photo: David Morrison Yengo National Park Walk Safely—Walk with a Club T h e Bushwalker The Official Publication of the Confederation of Bushwalking Clubs NSW Volume 33, Issue 4, Spring 2008 From the editor’s desk. ISSN 0313 2684 Editor: Roger Caffin ell, we have several articles on safety this time. There’s one [email protected] from Keith Maxwell of the BWRS about the need to let Graphic Design & Assembly: Wpeople know where you are when you need rescuing. It can Barry Hanlon be a bit hard to find you otherwise. There’s another, rather shocking in a way, from Michael Keats of The Bush Club, about live ammunition Confederation Officers: and chemical warfare shells from WW II hidden near Lithgow. He is President: Wilf Hilder hoping that a bit of publicity might persuade the Defence Dept to clean Administration Officer: up its act. Finally, there’s one from the Editor on ‘When Things Go [email protected] Wrong’, which shows just how powerful nature can be in the Website: www.bushwalking.org.au mountains, and emphasising that there is a time for any of us when retreat is the smart and only option. We don’t want dead heroes. Address all correspondence to: PO Box 119, Newtown, NSW 2042 Articles for Publication Clubs and members are encouraged to submit relevant articles, with a The Confederation of Bushwalking Clubs NSW Inc represents very strong preference for those with good pictures. Both the author approximately 66 Clubs with a total and the author’s club will feature in the Byline - this is a good way to membership of about 8,700 advertise YOUR club. We will also accept articles from outside bodies bushwalkers. where the articles seem relevant to members. Articles may be edited for length and content to help fit into our page Formed in 1932, the Confederation limit. Pictures should be sent at maximum available resolution: at least provides a united voice on behalf of all bushwalkers on conservation, access 300 dpi, preferably in their original unedited form. JPG, PDF or TIFF and other issues. formats are preferred. The text should be sent as a plain text file (*.txt), NOT as a Word file (*.doc). I repeat, please send the pictures separate People interested in joining a bush- from the text file; do NOT send them embedded in a Word doc file. walking club may write to the Pictures taken from a Word doc file are simply not good enough and Confederation Administration won’t be published. And, of course, the Editor is always interested in [email protected] receiving bushwalking books and maps for review. All enquiries should for a list of Clubs, but a far more be sent to [email protected] . useful on-line list is available at the Confederation website Please note that opinions expressed by authors may not represent the www.bushwalking.org.au, official opinions of the Confederation or any Club. The Editor’s opinions broken up into areas. There’s lots of are his own. other good stuff there too, including Roger Caffin the bushwalking FAQ. Index Subscribe to The Bushwalker Keep up with all the news and developments happening in the NSW bushwalking scene for Don’t you wish you were here? 2 only $10 per year. This is to cover posting and From the Editor’s Desk 3 handling: the magazine itself is free. Send your name and address and cheque or St Helena Crater 4 money order to the Confederation of Bush- Marangaroo—What can go Wrong? 6 walking Clubs NSW Inc, PO Box 119, New- town NSW 2042. The new phone number is Three Peaks Walk, Shoalhaven 8 9565 4005. Make the cheque or money order payable to the Confederation of Bushwalk- When Things Go Wrong 10 ing Clubs NSW Inc as well: please do not ab- breviate the name! What if it Goes Wrong? 13 Please indicate which issue you want your sub- Book Review—Bushwalking in the Rainbow Region 14 scription to start with. We don’t want to dupli- cate copies you already have. Volume 33, Issue 4, Spring 2008 The Bushwalker | 3 Walk Safely—Walk with a Club in the eyes of trip leaders. Whatever the reason, in a few short decades its Saint Helena Crater, popularity faded. The harm the Warrigals feared was Blue Mountains National Park from loggers and cattlemen, and this they the sandstone rim and removed the neck managed to prevent. A worse fate was not Peter Miller, filling to a depth over 300 feet. Well imagined, but has come to pass. Carried Brisbane Waters Outdoors Club grassed forest land, its presence in the bowels of foxes, blackberries unsuspected, even at a short distance.’ invaded the crater in the 1990s. aint Helena Crater, near Glenbrook In the early 1930s bushwalking was ‘Blackberry is a Weed of National in the Blue Mountains, played a becoming popular. Saint Helena country Significance. It is regarded as one of the significant part in conservation and was a favoured destination with the worst weeds in Australia because of its S invasiveness, potential for spread, and bushwalking history. Off the radar for Warrigal Club. Around 1937 certain many years, the crater now has a huge Warrigals set about applying for a lease of economic and environmental impacts. weed problem. A plan has been set in Saint Helena Crater. It was learned that if Blackberry has invaded the banks of motion to fix it, but it needs your help, representations were made for the watercourses, roadsides, pastures, and your club’s help. dedication of 100 acres around the crater, orchards, plantations, forests and The Blue Mountains National Park is a there was every expectation of success. It bushland throughout temperate Australia. short walk from where I grew up. The was hoped that the proposed crater [...] Blackberries also affect tourism, Park was a comfort, a refuge, an unending reservation should be the nucleus of a reducing the natural attraction of the source of adventure and solitude; and larger National Park. bush and hindering recreational activities intimately tied to my family history. My ‘Saint Helena Crater was granted by where thickets prevent access to natural grandfather’s tales of bush walks long ago the terms of a permissive occupancy to features.’ (my grandfather was Bert Pelham, of the the Federation of Bushwalking Clubs From www.weeds.gov.au Warrigal Club) had me haring off to around April 1941. Over 100 acres surrounding the The blackberry is not harmed by bush- crater were fires; indeed it thrives after a fire. The granted. It was 2002 January fires devastated the Blue reported in April Mountains National Park, and Saint 1941 that the area Helena Crater was not spared. With all of was pioneered by the native plants dead or dormant, the the Warrigal Club blackberry went crazy. Today, the entire amongst floor of the crater, all of the rich volcanic bushwalkers [and soil, all thirty acres, is covered by that the crater] is blackberry thickets. These thickets are too an attractive and dense to walk through, you must retreat unique feature from back to the sandstone and its sandy soils the point of view of to go around. geological and There are some open grassy areas on botanical study and the north western side which appear to be the [lease] will each centered on a wombat burrow. permit of some These grass foraging areas are not control being pristine, however: they are infested with exercised over it to Cobblers Pegs, Bidens pilosa. Ironically, prevent spoilation the few wombats that survived the fire (it StHelena, Circa 1933. B&W hand tinted. A. H. Pelham collection. and destruction of raged, unstoppable, for several days) may (see person in centre foreground for scale) these special have been saved from starvation by the features. quick growing fresh blackberry shoots. places where bushwalkers in the past had The ultimate goal of the Warrigal Club Far from a wilderness jewel, the Saint become lost for days at a time. Somehow, was realised when the Blue Labyrinth was Helena Crater of today is an ugly brown without a topo map, and with the barest gazetted as part of the Blue Mountains scab. There are standing skeletons of trees of directions, remote and beautiful places National Park in 1959.’ which did not survive the 2002 fire. There were visited and appreciated, without Cameron, B., (1992) ‘A History of are fallen trees and dropped branches ever once arriving home overdue. the Blue Labyrinth’. One of the places I remember most [Used with permission.] fondly was Saint Helena Crater. It was beautiful. Picture green grass, with tall Saint Helena Crater was white columns of gums reaching up, a popular destination for branchless for many metres, to support a bushwalkers in the era green cathedral ceiling with gnarly before cars, when organic arches. The dappled shade proximity to railway covered lush grass groomed by wombats stations was essential. and kangaroos. No matter where you Many clubs, including camped in the crater the views were the Federation of picturesque and serene. Saint Helena Bushwalking Clubs, held Crater was not especially difficult to reach annual reunion trips at by the mid 1970s, but not frequently Saint Helena Crater, visited, either.