Sunday 18 April 2021

First creek crossing

First big hill

Donna and Louise on Snake Gully Road (and discussing that tree)

The tree defying gravity

Trying to work out what is holding that tree up

One of the creek crossings on the walk

A pretty creek

Oh look, another hill!

A little oasis

Photos courtesy of Karen, Tom and Donna

After having to cancel the Pig Road walk, an old walk, the Mogendoura Range, was chosen as a replacement.  It had recently been retrieved from the crypt of ‘old walks’ in the last few months, dusted off and used for training purposes due to the hills, hills and more hills dotted throughout. It was last listed on the club program seventeen years ago so it was thought that it was a good opportunity to resurrect it as the replacement.

Set in the Mogendoura Ranges just west of Moruya, the walk is 13kms long and contained within the Wandera State Forest.  As the area is still recovering from the 2019/20 bushfires, vegetation is light along the tops of the ranges however this provided some nice views to Mt Wamban in the south and the Moruya to Broulee areas in the east and north east.  Down in the gullies there was some lovely walking, particularly along Snake Gully Road which skirts along a pretty creek.  Thankfully no snakes were encountered, only copious amounts of spiders and their webs which the walk leader dutifully collected on her body throughout that track.

All in all it was a nice walk on a lovely day even if the participants didn’t believe the walk leader when she chanted the age old walk leader’s mantra “this is the last hill.”  But they had the last laugh at lunchtime when the conversation took a sinister turn.  The topic revolved around the up and coming first aid course that members were attending.  The discussion initially covered the treatment for stings from jelly fish, blue bottles and the like then, to the horror of the walk leader, certain members discussed their desire to practice some CPR!  Knowing that there was still at least three kilometers to walk and the fact that the standard ten percent allowable attrition rate on each walk still applied a quick mathematical equation was applied by the walk leader to which she was immediately relieved. With only eight walkers this meant that we were only talking limbs and other bits and pieces, albeit on multiple walkers.  It was nothing that a few band-aids and compression bandages couldn’t handle until we got back to the cars.  A relief indeed!

Donna