[SUBW-A] Trip report - Kowmung River, 31st Dec - 3rd Jan.

[Marcelle Gannon]

Party: Marcelle 'Snake Hunter' Gannon, Cameron 'March
Fly Magnet' Schmelitschek, Luke 'Bunsen' Binsted,
Albert 'Weather Station' Chetcuti, Mal 'Gollum'
McLeod, Clare 'Faceplant' Ly, Rachel 'Don't get me
dirty' Kay, James 'Eating Machine' Bevan.

The trip plan was fairly loose - drive to Kanangra on
the morning of the 31st, walk to the Kowmung, splash
around a bit, and come out either on the Uni Rover
trail or up Christy's Creek, depending on the weather
and the speed of travel.  

The first day started well, with us arriving at the
Uni Rover at about 11:30am, ready for lunch and a
quick stroll down to Hatcher's Hollow.  I was pleased
to see everyone kitted up in gaiters, as I had warned
in emails about how to avoid snakebite, which everyone
seemed to think was a bit over the top, but Mal did
see 8 of them during the walk! (all the red-belly
variety). Rach was looking a little unhappy and on
questioning replied that she didn't really like
getting dirty ... but an hour or two of bum-sliding
soon fixed that!!  Clare did a spectacular faceplant
tripping over a stick, and got some massive black
bruises on her legs as a result.

We were all feeling a bit down following the walk
across Mt Misery, Mt Hopeless, Despond Ridge etc, and
finally arriving at Hatcher's Hollow after a messy
scramble down between Mt Ibbai and Mt Doris we were
extremely relieved by a swim in the beautiful Kowmung,
which had been warmed up nicely by the 35 degree day. 
Hatcher's Hollow was deserted and as gloriously flat
as always.  Unfortunately the side creek was dry so we
collected water from the river.  A hearty dinner
followed, with Luke cooking one round of dinner to
share with James and James cooking his own second and
third billy-fuls of macaroni, and then finishing
everyone else's scraps.  We agreed that the next day
we would have a slow start, as we were all pretty
knackered from the long drive and walk in.  New Year's
festivities were quite restrained, limited to a packet
of Pringles and a few bikkies ... and no one stayed up
till midnight, though many were still awake then given
that it was still well over 20 degrees.

Waking at about 8am the next day, we were surprised by
the baking heat and declared the morning to be for
swimming in the large swimming hole.  Luke cooked up
the first of his bacon rashers for brekky.  The cliffs
of Mt Doris provided excellent shade until about
midday, when the sun forced the hardy swimmers into a
corner under a ledge, where from the sandy bank Mal
looked remarkably like Gollum, crouching over the
water. 

We received visitors at about this time, an older
couple who had come from Ruby Ck (upstream) and had
cleverly brought a flyscreen.  Cam meanwhile was
frantically trying to keep the march flies off, as
they were biting him everywhere including on each of
his knuckles.  The other flies were really annoying
too - everyone swallowed one or two (or ten), and at
dinner the tiny little flies provided some much needed
protein after diving into our pots of sauce.

The ever adventurous Clare decided she would do a
waterjump.  After getting James to check the water
depth she scrambled up about 6m and after about 15
mins finally jumped off, declaring it an excellent
jump.  Our fly-screened friend decided that he wanted
to jump too, but without any clothing ... he hopped
into the river just as Clare was getting out, much to
her surprise ... and she was able to confidently
report that he was circumcised ... not that anyone
really wanted to know!  We hid our faces until he had
completed the water jump and returned to his tent ...
phew!  A few other members of the trip had a jump too,
though they were a bit more modest about swinging
their private parts around!!

Albert provided regular updates on the weather with
his nifty watch.  He reported it was 36 degrees by the
river under the casuarinas.  At lunchtime a few
foolish people headed up to the tents to get some food
and found it was extremely hot - Hatcher's hollow
seemed to be very well sheltered from the little
breeze that was available, but not at all sheltered
from the sun, so it was probably well over 40 degrees
up there!  We retreated to the river to swim until the
evening, hoping the temperature would fall.  At about
7pm it was still 33 degrees in the shade and not
looking like dropping.  We returned to the campsite
hungry but not really feeling like cooking or eating!
The chocolate was still liquid at 10pm :-(  Clare and
Cameron tried to make Bacardi Breezers from Bacardi,
warm water and Vitafresh.  Not recommended!  However I
can report that Clare is just as entertaining (and
free with the gossip) whether she has had one drink or
several ;-)

An unpleasantly hot night followed, until the clouds
cleared at about 3am and we could actually get right
inside the inner sheet (forget about the sleeping
bag!).  At about this time I was woken by wild
laughter from the boys' fly (Albert, Mal and Luke) and
the hiss of a possum.  Mal did an excellent impression
the next day of the possum with a little Tupperware
container in its hands ready to tuck into some pesto. 


We made an early start the next day, heading for the
Uni Rover trail, planning to walk out on Saturday
instead of Sunday due to the roasting heat and the
need to be coherent for work on Monday (not that it
really worked!!).  We waterproofed packs and were soon
swimming down the wonderful canyon-like section of the
river.  Many other sections were also swimmable, or
deep enough to tow packs while walking in the water. 
We all found our packs to be a little heavier than
before so stopped for some munchies and to
investigate.  Sure enough, there was some water
getting in ... through several layers of imitation
dry-bags, lots of plastic bags, and pretty much
everything else.  Some of us got away with a bit of
dampness; others (Luke and Clare) were pretty much
saturated.  Luke in particular managed to wet
everything including his sleeping bag and loo paper.

Lunch at Cache Bend was interrupted by a rather small
but inquisitive black snake who swam across the river
towards us, then disappeared up the bank, only to
return a few minutes later to spy on us.  A few rocks
thrown nearby finally scared him off a little.  We
pressed on to Black Snake Bend (and there was a pretty
big snake, as Clare can attest), and finding the river
much easier going, arrived at the base of the Uni
Rover trail just as the sun went behind the ridge, so
it was pleasantly shady.  The heat emanating from the
rocks kept us pretty warm though, right until morning.
 We lit a fire and tossed in Luke's wet and festering
bacon, and Cam's leftover Bacardi (or was it metho, it
certainly burnt like it was!!!).  

We agreed to have a VERY early start on the last day. 
Alarms were set for 5am and we were away by 6:30am,
each carrying around 3.5L of water.  We trudged up
Lanighan's Spur on the Uni Rover Trail (faint footpad
in many parts, especially near the bottom), covering
most of the steep sections before 10am, which was
lucky, as once the sun got high in the sky it was hard
to walk even on the flat for more than 20 mins without
a rest to drink and cool off.  This route is around
18km and rises 900m.  About 10km of this is along a
not-so-shady ridge that seemed to go on forever.  The
lunch spot was pretty toasty, and we were delighted to
find a fantastic chilly little creek just before Lost
Rock (and just after the last serious climb of the
day) where we collected more water and dunked hats :-)

Finally we walked the last 3km to the cars, arriving
at just after 3pm.  We returned the same way we had
come - via Oberon instead of Jenolan, and were most
pleased with the easy drive. We stopped at the Halfway
House for some cold drinks, chips and ice-cream, and
continued to the Imperial at Mt Vic for dinner.  Some
very unpleasant unpacking of wet socks and other
assorted wet items followed!!!

Thanks to everyone who came along for making it so
much fun and thanks especially to those who helped
with navigating and leading and driving.  See you all
on the next walk!!

Marcelle.








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