Camping @ Bungonia National Park
Its been like 2 months preparation that the activity has been posted by James in Couchsurfing that he is keen to do a Caving and Abseiling trip in Bungonia sometime in November. At last, November 29-30 the activity pushed through.
James is a caving and abseiling instructor aside from his normal job as a teacher. there were more or less 18 couchsurfers and 3 guests or so who joined the trip.
So us, who have no cars are divided amongst the surfers who have cars and Amy from last week’s trip volunteered to take me. I was having a surfer that week from Thursday and Friday night, Roberto from Spain, that I had to chuck poor thing really early as I was laving the house before 530 to catch the train and bus to Erskenville to Amy’s.
Roberto and I waited for the bus but it did not arrive, waited for 30 minutes and still no bus arrived and so we hitched on a taxi with this lady waiting on the shed with us, I dropped Roberto @ Newtown and just my luck the driver he does not have any sense of direction and do not know where Erskenville is and I am already 5 minutes late. Eventually after 3 stops of asking directions, we made it through.
I was met by Dorothee waiting at the gates of Amy, then Vallicity and Amy. We set off around 7am towards south of NSW. Bungonia is around 58KMs away from Campbelltown.
James and party was waiting at the turn around point to the National park, where we were met by 3 more cars. Then head off to the campsite.
First activity was setting the camping site. Tents and everything! You see, I never had any camping experience in my life. My parents did not let me join the scouts when i was younger. So this is very exciting for me. But one aim was for me to find who can host me during the night! i did not have any tent but just sleeping bag. Alas! Michael had a “mother” tent and not hosting anyone and I am lucky that he was accommodating enough to adopt me. He even had some cots set up that we need not sleep on the ground! I am so lucky! So i did learn how to pitch a tent (and depitch it on the second day).
After setting like 12 tents in the site, James oriented us the camping rules and activities. He is only able to take in 8 campers in the cave each time and I was not sure yet as the last time i did caving a year ago i broke my toe. So I did a bush walk with Tracey. Did see the canyons and lookouts and geckos and ants and ant hills no major wildlife.
The caving takes at max 2.5 hours and James estimated coming back in two hours. We waited at the mouth of the cave 15 minutes before they should be coming out as phone signal is bad that if they get distress or we get lost it is going to be challenging. Right enough, they were back and complete in 2 hours, muddy with smiling faces. We head back to the camp for lunch!
We had Sandwiches and fruit that lunch and had our picnic at the camp site. Rested for an hour and James was ready to take the next batch for caving. There were 11 of us but he took us anyway.
We did the same cave called Grill Cave. We can go as far as 1.5 kilometer deep. Its the safest distance we can go as if we go further, high level of Carbon Dioxide is high and so it is not good. This is more of tourist friendly cave. and an easy one, to James (not for me!). But I think this is easier than the Sumagiung caves in Sagada. Just having short legs makes it difficult reaching the steps and careful not to slip. Fair enough share of stalagmites and stalactites. We came back at the entrance of the cave ad there was still daylight. We were less muddy compared to the first batch.
We had our shower, and got ready for dinner time We had pasta, sausages, grilled veggies, kebabs, and beer and chocolate. Then we finished the night off with a game of Jengga Michael brought with him.
It was raining when it was time to go back to the tents. It is good combination that i was tired and the beers and the cot! I was able to sleep well.
Following morning, i woke up wanting to do a run on the trails but i did not have any of my running attire so i just slept in and after I learned that breakfast is ready so I had two pancakes! And then as planned we packed the tents and got ready for the abseiling activity.
Again I was one of the last person to do the activity as I do have a fear for doing free fall activities. Yet I was happy I did it. And now I think I like abseiling better than caving.
We went back to the campsite and had our lunch, left over pasta salad, sandwiches, fruits, chips and chocolate. Our party went ahead of the group back to Sydney. The rest of the grup were left at the camp and they did play cricket, frizbee and volleyball. Before we left we were able to get a glimpse of a monitor lizard. Some of the campers saw kangaroos while we were on the cave, echidna and we saw a possum. It was very nice. The trip was a tiring but fun weekend.
Tags: Abseiling, Australia, Bungonia National Park, campbelltown, camping, caving, couchsurfing, Grill Cave, novermber, nsw, pitch tent, sunny day, weekend
December 3rd, 2008 at 10:50 pm
cool!