Canberra Bushwalking Club I . P.O. Box .160, Canberra City IT f0rJUNE 1971 Registered for posting as a periodical - Category B NEWSLETTER - CBC PRICE lOc Vol. 7 No. 6 MONTHLY MEETING:n! WdñeEday, 19th May 1971 at 8,00 pth. in the Meetings Room, "University House", Liversidge Street, Acton. featuring The Australian Andes Expedition. Dot Butler, one of the members of the 1969 Australian mountaineering expedition to Villacamba, Peru, will give an illustrated talk about the expedition. This will be a combined meeting with the A.N.U. Mountaineering Club, and the Canberra Alpine Club and the Y,M.C.A. Ski Club and • will be held in the Copeland Lecture Theatre. There will be no Club reports as general business at this meeting. TH.E WIDEN'ING G A P In the tradition of crusading editorials "IT" is once again given over to a big, big issue on. its fighting front page. .. .', Recently, due to an alarming cbnfluence of unfortunate circumstances, onewas left behind on an early (5.20 a.m2) Saturday start to a weekend walk. (Aside - if it was bloody well necessai'y to leave Canberra that early, a Friday night start wasthe only reasonable way:'to organise the trip.) Consequently one made an eleventh hour bid to join the Sunday walk for that weekend. Through the good offices of the leader this was arranged. After a tearaway.start'at 9,.20 a.m. on the Sunday and other minor misadventures the convoy reached its destination. Three quarters of an hour and one mile later and we had walked to our objective. In the course of the day one realised that three parts of the company were quite urrfEimiliar. Shock of realization - a quite different setof individuals attend day walks. Or is this an isolated sampling of daywalkers? Or are the weekend walks that one has att4nded unreprésenitative? Rough mental check - less than one chance in a hundred that this should be so. Number of instances in the check. Quite a few. Highly reliable probability.. A quiet word with the leader of the day walk reveals that in his estimation this particular walk was typical: about 4Q of the party were newcomers the rest being regular daywalkers. Daytrippers? . Theconversation was taken up by other people and some incisive observations were mid&. "Daytrippers are more interesting people because they have so many tteresting discussions." "Well since they only go a few yards, what else can they do? Stare at each other?". The dialogue went on. An intense young daywalker felt that the"weekenders" were very physical, even masochistic, and did not relate. Anyway there is at least one weekend walker of breeding and good manners. And safe footwear? 2/ - 2 - IT JUNE 197 About two o'clock. "Let's all go back to a coffee shop and have another discussion. Daywalkers are people with a purpose. We're not drongos who spend all weekend thrashing around out in the bush." "Last week we climbed Mt .......25 minutes of pure hell. Glad to get back to the shop though. They sell ice-cream and paddle-pops..." The speaker halted, having snagged her sock on a blackberry bush. "Damn." "Don't worry, it's only your sock. i'll help you." "It's not the bloody sock I'miworried about. I'm wearing new pantyhose." "And.what's more," someone continued, "on day trips there are always so many new faces. On weekend trips, f rpm what'I've heard, mainly blokes turn up, and there are not often mahy new people." At this point, conversation lapsed as the party concentrated on picking its way through the visiting cards, of some local stock. .6 One was troubled after these things had passed. Are there two factions relentlessly forming. Out of touch with one another. Consolidating. Are there more than two? Perhaps if weekend walks were programmed on which it was obligatory to carry stringies, wear pantyhose and have a programme of interesting discussions to be conducted in every alternate hour, we might narrow the gap. And if day walks were physical and dour countenances were compulsory and if they went into the bush. Reconciliation is possible if people want it. Let's try. L E T T E R TO THE EDITOR Dear Sir, - I was somewhat dismayed to rçad in IT for -April1971 under the heading "Important Notice", that you were advertising for back issues of-IT for 1.962-Sep 1965, plus a few later issues. As it happens I was the first editor of IT, and have good reason to remember that IT all began late in1965, as a completely new venture. In other words the aforesaid missing numbers are not only missing, but are, and always have been, non-existent. This H blunder, seems to be adding inult to a former "injury", as when the volume numbering of IT was-begun, the first years of issue 1965-68 were ignored, and IT was numbered as from 1969 Vol. 1 No.1. You Will have to forgive me for feeling somewhat heated on the subjEct, but IT was 9 ina sense, my baby. I gave IT birth, named IT and nurtured IT through IT's first two years.. ... or infancy. Yours etc. Alice Lèy Pleàthd refer to the masthead, Alice. Your point is taken. Ed NOTICE OF PROPOSAL TO A M E N D CONSTITUTION Many members are dissatisfied with the title of this publication, It is felt that "IT" does not convey 4ufficient character or individuality "IT" could meananything. Consequently the, following names have been suggsted: "Corroboree", - 3 - IT JUNE 1971 "Around the Gunyah", "Bush Talker", "Casuarina Chunderer", "Mountain Yodeller",. The proposal notified does not specify any particular name, but will delete reference to "IT" in the constitution, thus leaving the choice of the name in the hands of the general meeting of the Club. "It is proposed that the title "IT" be deleted wherever it appears, in the Club constitution and the magazine be cited instead by the words 'the Club magazine.' " "IT" INTELLIGENCE There were earlier reports in this column of the incursion of a group of trail bilcers into the Kosciusko Park. Our analysts reveal that a longstanding threat to the Park had been overlooked in the earlier assessment. All over the mountains native vegetation in a harsh environment is subject . to scarring and damage. Four wheel drive vehicles are particularly hard on the vegetation. The Kosciusko authorities have graphic photographs of a place where one 4 wheel drive vehicle drove across an untracked area and back again to the road. It's track is now a heavily eroded scar." CHA NG ES / AD D I T I ON S TO M E M B E R S H I P L. I S T PeteP Conroy 62 Blamey Creseent, Campbell. 2601 (H) 489792 Pat Green 256 Dryandra Street, O'Connor, 2601 (w) 487722 x559 DavidCrantham 114/k Kanangra Court, Reid. 2601 Geoff Moseley 126 Beverley Road, Rosanna. VIC. 3084 Patricia O'Leary :78/C Currong Flats, Braddon., 2601 Barry Mayfield 110 Batchelor Street, Torrens. 2607 FramkRigby 832211 (w) Tom Halsey 466077 w) CLUB:N:OTES PHOTOGRAPHY COMPETITION The Club's annual photography competition will be held at the general meeting in September. It will be judged by Ed Slater. There will be two sections in the competition: landscape, and human interest. Rich prizes. p . . . Lindsay Bottomer, Jessie Davie, Jadwiga (Cha Cha) Gajewski, Elizabeth Howie, • Robert (Bob) Jackson, Arminal Marrow and Michael Merrony have been accepted as members. Welcome all. C L U B D I A R Y Alan Moy is leaving Canberra this month on promotion to Darwin. The Presidential family is ensconced (at last:) in their final abode. Wave to them anytime you happen to be passing. N E W S FROM N E A R A N D F A R There is no news from near and far this month except that Cynthia Breheny is now reported by a reliable source to bellying somewhere on the edge of the Arctic Circle - probably Novaya Zemla. 1. . -4- IT JUNE 1971 PR U F Well daris herel am. back again after a crippling bout of writer's crarp, myopia and infected eardrums all gained as the result of my efforts to penetrate the vast wall of silence surrounding inter-personal relations (or lack thereof) twixt club members. Crunch S-----4 X -------- - X ---------Believe Craig's passengers, other car driver, police and the peaceful citizens of Braidwood learned some new ways of expressing themselves as the aftermath of a prang on the Nerriga road. Still on the subject of cars was he really Vrank a while ago when complaining that other people never €ook their cars on trips? What is that 1100 doing in the garage? The long and the short of the matter is who has Julie been seen with of late.? Whet a treasure. ReCt is now art mistress of the Mountain Huts. Was that eventful trip up Hannels Spur supported by a gasbag full of hot Aaron the way? Phew Natia Jenny has been nursing a desire to change employment and has been seen living in a Curley Houe these days. I always believed the club was a fertile breeding ground. Michael Hinchey is not proving me wrong. Hellman (Helman?). What' • s.that erstwhile world travelle.r d9ing joining suburbia along Limestone Avenue. It is not even very far removed from the in-laws. Bye, Prudie. .C.LUB PROGRAMME J U N E - JULY DATE EVENT . GRADE LEADER MAP 16 JUNE T. LK ON AUSTRALIAN ANDES (WED) EXPEDITION, 8.00 P .M.