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2005 : Binalong Bay (Winter)
Binalong Bay Winter Trek Complete!
Thursday
Well the trip started out the usual way, with a pre-trip nosh-fesh at my place, then on to packing for the weekend.
Justin was a last minute withdrawal, but this left us plenty of room in the two cars for lots of gear.
Mike surprised us with a recent purchase, of a 10,000,000 candle power torch… great for finding your way home in the dark, getting tan at night, or lighting small brushfires from 50m away…
Mikes new torch…
So we packed and packed and got everything ready for the next day, then everyone went home for their last “decent” nights sleep for a few days…
Friday
Friday came around, a very nice sunny day, and hopefully a sign of things to come…
Luckily Mike & myself had the day off from work, so I spent the morning gathering last minute supplies, and then in the afternoon, Mike & I packed up the car.
Around 4pm Jim & Bob arrived, in Petes old Nissan, with their car already packed it didn’t take us long to get going.
After a quick stop in Bridgewater for some KFC for dinner, it was on to Campbelltown, where it turns out, most places shut early on a Friday night :angry:
So after finding just one shop open for business, we headed off in to the darkness towards the east coast.
On the road…
We stopped at St Helens, where we picked up some firewood and kindling, and headed up the road to Binalong Bay.
We got to our previous camping spot at around 10pm or so, but found a campervan already parked :angry:, so we headed around to one of the other spots in the same area.
We found a likely spot, and started setting up. We knew we couldn’t be too far away from the beach, as we could hear the waves close by. It’s a eerie thing to be setting up, and getting used to a place completely in the dark, then finding out the next day what it looks like!
Setting up at night…
Well we set about unpacking the car, and setting up the big tent, and little tents, hammocks, got our respective inflatable matresses puffed up - then we threw over the large large tarp for the big tent to act as a fly in case of rain.
At this stage we expected to be cold, as it is winter! But the temperature was actually quite balmy, at around 17?C (At midnight!!)
After getting all the tents set up, Bob & Jim got a fire going, while Mike & I set up the bar, fridge, tables, lighting, and audio visual gear in the big tent.
It’s amazingly easy to start a fire with some kerosene & a makeshift flame-thrower… :laughing:
A roaring fire…
Fully stocked!
Ah yes, the bar is open!
Not having much wood to deal with we let the fire fend for itself, then we retired to the big tent for some cards and drinking!! (and to keep the mosquitos out!)
Everyone had brought along something alcoholic of their choice, and there was a fair selection too!
From memory there was (apart from truckload of coke & ice):
1 Bottle Canadian Club
2 Cans Kilkenny Ale
1 Bottle Tokay Liqueur
1 Bottle Baileys Irish Cream
1 Bottle “No Name Brand” Scotch
1 Bottle Royal Swan Rum
1 Bottle Bulleitt Bourbon
1 Bottle Tullemore Dew
1 Bottle Angostura Rum
Whew!!! :crying:
We didn’t actually have any ice (we shoud’ve got some from the Servo in St Helens) but Mike broke out a frozen solid bottle of water that he’d brought along, and we used that - it required quite a bit of banging and smashing to get the bottle open (well, smashed open anyway)
Mmmm Canadian Club!
Well with ice at hand and beverages aplenty, we got stuck in to some serious drinking, and some serious Winkies - Jim had brought along his counters, and Bob had his neat plastic transparent deck of cards, so we were fully optioned, card playing-wise…
Oooh - the winning hand?!
It wasn’t that cold in the tent…
Well the card playing was full on, with everyone making a run for the winners post, the drinks were strong, making everyone feel happy and warm!
Well we drank & played cards in to the wee small hours of the night, then hit the sleeping bags… (4AM according to the time stamp on my photos!!!!!)
4am - am I winning?
SATURDAY
Our Camping Spot<="" p="" border="1">
Our camping spot
I remember waking sometime after hearing rain on the fly of my tent, but slept till about 9.30 or so… I got out of my sleeping bag, got dressed and unzipped the tent, to find a wet, grey miserable day…
Jim is up!
I was the only one up, so I had a bit of a look around our camping spot, then went and hid out of the rain in the main tent. I found that our big tent wasn’t 100% waterproof! A few leaks up the top rear, plus it was raining heavily enough to get throught the vertical mozzie netting.
Soon after Bob was up, along with Jim & Mike… and we set about getting breakfast! We first had to get the tables level as they were on a bit of a slope. Then Bob got his porta-BBQ going, and soon enough we had rounds of bacon & eggs for everyone. For me a Hot Chocolate was the going beverage of the morning as well.
A Healthy Breakfast! (not)
Even though it was raining, it wasn’t cold, but there wasn’t much else to do except sit back, listen to a few tunes, and tidy up our tent.
Mike & I whipped a makeshift rain shelter for the side of the tent with a sunvisor, two towels and some string.
We had lunch, and still it rained! - we got out a large water jug and watched & timed how long it took to fill from runoff from the roof tarpaulin. Exciting stuff…
Fill er up!
By late afternoon the rain had lightened up a bit, so we decided to see if we could scavenge some firewood from one of the many firetrails nearby. We all piled in to Mike car and headed for the hills…
Ohhhh, I’m a lumberjack, and I’m ok…
It didn’t take us long to find a suitable spot! A quarry, with some long dead and fallen trees of just the right size. I’d brought along my bowsaw this time, so we were prepared!
It was hard work, and after each taking turns, we figured it was easier to make a two-man saw out of the bowsaw. We filled the boot of Mikes car pretty quickly and headed back to camp.
I don’t think we can fit much more in…
We made a quick stop at the previous trips location, found it empty, and wandered out on to the rocky point to look at the sea - Wow! There were HUUGE waves crashing in, with spray climbing as high as we were (a good 7-8m above sea level) - very impressive!
Nice point break…
We wandered back to the camp, got the wood stacked, and made an adjustment to the firepit rocks, in preparation for tonights feast. The rain had stopped, and the clouds were thinning out, so it looked like the evening would be fine!
We put some of the remaining wood from the previous evening on the fire, doused it in Kero, then lit it with Jims flamethrower, and soon enough, had a decent fire going! We stacked the rest of the wet (collected) wood near the fire to dry.
Jims flamethrower…
I’d brought along the flatplate from my home BBQ, and we carefully made a support of rocks to keep it stable and level.
While the fire was being tended, I chopped up some onions, and got meat and other stuff ready. We also got a nice pepper & bourbon gravy on the stove, as a tasty topping to our steaks.
Pepper gravy!
We had the plate nice and hot, and threw on our meaty treats. Once the onions, bacon and steak were done, we retired to the big tent to eat them. Topped off with the pepper sauce, they were absolutely delicious! I had one of my nice Kilkenny Ales with my steak… awesome…
Dinner is cookin’
A bit of a rest, then we cooked a few pancakes with whipped cream, and a tokay/maple syrup sauce to go with them. Yummmm!
Pancakes on their way!
Then another rest, and we sat around the fire toasting marshmallows, until it was time to get inside and play cards, and drink!
Another furious bout of drinking & card playing ensued - I’m not sure who won the night, but I’m sure they’re proud of themselves… :wink: Sometime in the early morning, we hit the sack again.
Wazaaaa!
SUNDAY
The next day was gorgeous! Sun shining, warm… beautiful - who would’ve thought it was the middle of winter!
Good morning sunshine!
I think I was the last one out of bed around 11am, as I was toasty warm in my sleeping bag - I had no trouble with cold at all, in fact I was a bit too warm…
I got up and fixed myself a LARGE Hot Chocolate, extra, extra chocolatey too -
Again we had another feast of bacon & eggs for late brekkie, and then a quick lunch.
Brekkie again!
After lunch we decided to stretch our legs and walk to the good fishing spot around where we camped last time, which is only a 10 minute walk. We found though that the tide was too far in, and there were’t any really easy spots to fish from.
No where to fish!
So, we decided to head around to Akaroa, and fish at the head of the St Helens harbour, but after an hour or so, fishing with lures & bait, we headed back, fishless… :sad:
Fishing…
We stopped in at St Helens, picked up a few more bags of ice, some more Kero, and essential snack food!
It was a beautiful clear day all day, but as soon as the sun dropped below the horizon, the temperature started dropping too…
Cool!
Pretty soon the night was the coldest we’d experienced! Jim has his trusty thermometer outside, and it said 9.1?C… brrr… we were rugged up this time, with lots of layers, beanies, and gloves… and if we turned all gas stoves on, we could actually make the big tent tropically comfortable (for 1/2 an hour)
We fired up the fire & flatplate again, but with selected sausages this time, gourmet ones… with bread, BBQ sauce, bacon & sauteed onions of course. After we ate, Bob brought out the damper mix, which we mixed together, wrapped in foil, and threw in the hot coals. We must’ve done something wrong, coz after half an hour, the outside was charcoal, and the inside was still raw/mushy… oh well…
Damper makin’!
Well, you guessed it, after dinner we sat down for another bout of drinking, music & card playing. As it was our last evening, everyone whipped out their remaining snacks, and pooled them on the table. We then realised we had more snacks than we could possibly eat! (after such a bit dinner anyway)
Fancy a ‘lil schnak?!
We played cards, we drank, we got stoopid… then at midnight(ish) we decided to do something we almost always do, which is to wander/stagger down to the beach… unfortunately the beach was on the other side of the point - so we had to walk it.
Mike lights the way…
Everyone doubly rugged up, and with headlamps & torches, we wandered around. It was moonless & cloudless and being a clear winters night, with the rain having washed any dust out of the air, it was so clear we could walk by starlight no torches needed… until we got to the rocks that is.
Mike brought along his 10 million candle power torch to light the way, and boy did it do that! You could light up the beach 1/2 a kilometer away…
My god, it’s full of stars…
We clambered up the rocks until we found a nice comfy spot to lay back and stare at the stars. Awesome - the milky way was clearer and brighter than anyone had seen it before… we stayed for 3/4 of an hour, we watched a few meteors flick across the firmament, then headed back to camp.
Time to hit the hay…
We packed up a few things, then retired to our tents…
MONDAY
Monday dawned a nice sunny day again… I got up late-ish again, around 10am or so… everyone was already up.
I got up, had a bit of a stretch, wandered around a bit… then got breakfast ready. As it turns out, we’d only used 1/4 of the bacon we took along, and still had nearly a dozen eggs left, so I got the bacon ready, and we cooked the LOT on the BBQ for breakfast, with a heathly helping of eggs, and fried onions. We found that we’d acquired some canine friends, obviously attracked by the smell of bacon!
Now that’s what I call a breakfast!
Nice doggie…
I then wandered around to the nearest rocky point to try a bit of fishing, but it was too weedy to have much success. I came back, and then it was the laborious task of packing up.
This took quite a while longer than we’d planned, but eventually we fitted everything back in to the two cars, and burnt whatever we didn’t want to take with us.
On the way back we stopped in and had a look at another campsite, this one looked awesome - with a building & fireplace/chimney and everything! Even the open camp areas around it were excellent, and there were real toilets!!!
Hmmm we’ll camp here next time!…
We kept going, stopping in Campbelltown for dinner (not much open again!), and finally arrived home after dark.
All in all, an excellent first winter trek!