The Tablelands Walking Club · Newsletter – June 2012 The Tablelands Walking Club P O Box 1020...
Transcript of The Tablelands Walking Club · Newsletter – June 2012 The Tablelands Walking Club P O Box 1020...
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Walking at the End of the World
Part 1: Isla Navarino, Tierra del Fuego
by Peter Blackwood
Separated from mainland South America by the
Magellan Strait and Beagle Channel, the Island of
Navarino, one of many which together comprise
Tierra del Fuego, is the southernmost inhabited
place on earth.
Formed by successive glaciations on top of tectonic
shifts of the earth's crust, Tierra del Fuego is a
young land, both in geological terms and culturally,
having been reached by its first human inhabitants,
the Yaghan, only 6,000 years ago. These hardy
souls clung precariously to the coastal fringe of
Navarino, and were known as canoe people because
of their dependence on the bark canoe to extract a
living from the marine pastures of the icy Fuegan
waters.
In 1830 one of their number, given the name
Jemmy Button, was kidnapped along with three of
his countrymen and taken to England by Capt. Fitz
Roy on the first voyage of the Beagle: they were
repatriated a year later when the Beagle returned to
these waters with the young naturalist Charles
Darwin. Thirty years later Jemmy was implicated in
the massacre of missionaries on Navarino for which
The Tablelands Walking Club
Newsletter – June 2012
The Tablelands Walking Club
P O Box 1020
Tolga 4882
www.tablelandsbushwalking.org
President – Sally McPhee - 4096 6026
Vice President – Patricia Veivers - 4095 4642
Vice President – John Dwyer - 0428 604 169
Treasurer – Alex Lindsay - 0427 231 971
Secretary – Travis Teske - 4056 1761
Activities Officer – Wendy Phillips – 4095 4857
Records Management – John Dwyer - 0428 604 169
Newsletter Editor – Travis Teske - 4056 1761 [email protected]
Health & Safety Officer – Morris Mitchell – 4092 2773
If a Walking Trip is Delayed – What Your Emergency Contact Needs to Know.
Occasionally trips are delayed due to unforeseen
circumstances. Before leaving on a Tablelands Walking
Club (TWC) outing you should tell your emergency
contact (family member or friend) where you are going
and give them a copy of the phone numbers of the Committee Members as members of the Management
Committee will be the Contact Officers.
Contact should be with any member of the Tablelands
Walking Club Management Committee. The phone
numbers of the committee members are found at the beginning of the Walks Program or the Newsletter. Move
down the list until you find someone at home.
If there were a situation that required a search or rescue,
members of the Committee would liaise with experienced walkers within TWC and with the Police and SES. They
will also hold membership details for all TWC members,
including the name of a family member or friend to
contact in case of delay or emergency.
The articles and information in this document are printed in good faith. The club does not accept responsibility for errors or omissions in this document or for the manner in which the information contained in this document is interpreted or implemented.
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he was tried by the British at Port Stanley on the
Falkland Islands.
The island's youth is reflected in the jagged and
bare rocky crags and spires of its backbone, the
Diente (lit. tooth or fang) Range. The circuit of the
Dientes and Lago Windhund (a lake on the south
coast of Navarino) is the most southerly walk in the
world, and it feels like it. Remote, without sign of
civilization, for as far as the eye can see and a
weather sky that changes by the hour, but rarely
allows the sun passage .
March is Autumn here: the days are getting shorter,
the high beech forests are turning from green to
shades of red, brown and ochre, night temperatures
are dropping toward zero and the days scarcely get
into double figures. No new snow yet, but it's a
possibility at any time, rain a high probability, and
wind, on the mountain passes enough to blow your
legs from under you, a certainty. And peat moors
made muddy and soggy by umpteen thousand feral
beavers, originally a gift of Canada, now become the
cane toads of this remote place; locals walk in gum
boots for these sections, initially to our
bemusement, but understanding by the end of the
first day!
The Dientes are no mighty alps: the highest peak is
little over 1000m, but this detracts not from their
rugged and at times bleak appearance. They are
formed of fragile and friable rock, their solid
loooking spires shedding massive slopes of loose
rock scree, separated by broad windswept barren
saddles.
Below the snow line, open u-shaped valleys
studded with blue and aqua lakes, their number
increased by the ubiquitous beaver. The valleys
and peaks are separated by bands of beach forest,
cut through with rocky streams, but now under
threat from the ravages of the beaver.
Camp sites fall into four categories: sloping, soggy,
windswept or, often as not, all of the above. But
never with less than spectacular outlooks.
The combination of these attributes – mountains,
lakes, weather, forests, bogs and beaver dams -
makes for stunning mountain walking. Just
enough challenges of exposure, precarious
traverses, long ascents, deep mud, creek crossings,
wind, rain and snow to make each day memorable.
And the views: on a clear day all the way south to
Cape Horn itself, and every day, a moving horizon
of sharp rocky spires above, and below, threads of
valley lakes and the waters of the Drake or Beagle
passages in the hazy distance.
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Over eight days the route makes its way across
open valleys, along soft trails of silence through the
beech forests, across steep scree slopes, scrambles
around precipitous bluffs, over wide passes devoid
of all but the most microscopic of vegetation,
around lakes separated by flowing streams and
rumbling cascades.
The crux of the walk comes on the second to last
day. After a long climb through the ascending
strata of vegetation and across another wide, rubbly
and windswept saddle, a tricky exposed traverse off
a high col across loose and seemingly vertical scree,
with a 600 metre drop beneath.
This is followed by relief and the exuberance of
scree running the steep descent to a lake, named
Guanaco, for the local variety of Llama whose sure
footed tracks can be seen criss-crossing the slopes
way above its namesake lake. Like the beaver and
much other fauna, it remained stubbornly unseen
by our eyes, unlike the soaring condor, with
nowhere to hide once on the wing from the heights
of the Dientes.
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Myrtle Rust Update
There have been detections of myrtle rust in a
number of significant new sites in Far North
Queensland since the last e-newsletter, including:
the Mossman Gorge section of Daintree National Park; the Barron Gorge and Kuranda National
Parks; the Smithfield Conservation Park; a
residential garden in Mareeba; and the Herberton Range State Forest west of Atherton on the
Atherton Tableland. These recent detections
confirm that myrtle rust is now established and widespread in Far North Queensland.
Biosecurity Queensland is continuing to work with key stakeholders in the area, including Cairns
Regional Council, Department of Environment and
Heritage Protection and Department of National
Parks, Recreation, Sport and Racing, to help implement strategies to manage the impacts and
minimise further spread.
A joint Department of Agriculture, Fisheries and Forestry/Department of National Parks,
Recreation, Sport and Racing media release was
distributed on 14 May 2012 to alert the public in Far North Queensland to these new detections,
advise ways they can help to minimise the risk of
spread, particularly into other national parks and World Heritage areas, and to seek their assistance
in tracking the disease's spread, host range and
impacts.
Myrtle rust represents a significant risk to North
Queensland's national parks and World Heritage
areas, including the Wet Tropics and islands on the Great Barrier Reef, due to the hot and humid
climate which is ideal for disease development and
spread, and the number of potential host species in the area. Many rainforest species are known to
be susceptible to myrtle rust and there is
increasing concern as to the long term impacts of the disease on the values of Queensland's World
Heritage areas.
Myrtle rust also represents a significant risk to the natural regeneration of the Wet Tropics and the
resilience of these vegetation communities
following significant cyclonic and other
environmental events. While the impacts are yet to be determined, it will be critical to track and
quantify the disease's impacts on regeneration of
the natural environment to the development of long term management strategies for the disease.
The impact and spread of myrtle rust is evidenced
by the growing number of myrtle rust cases in Queensland. The Myrtle Rust Program is currently
receiving on average around 20 reports a day of the
disease.
Please continue to report sightings of myrtle rust -
it contributes to our understanding of the
geographic and host range of the disease in
Queensland and will help us to develop more effective strategies for managing the disease and
its potential impacts.
Report myrtle rust by calling 13 25 23 or filling out
the online reporting form.
Evelyn Creek Falls and Valda’s Waterhole
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Annual General Meeting
The AGM will be held at Barabeen Scout Camp, Tinaroo Dam on Sunday August 5th starting at 11:30 for a
share meal followed by the AGM at 1:30 pm.
The club will provide sausages and steak but asks members to please bring either a salad or dessert to share.
Members may like to bring swimmers, canoes etc.
Partners welcome to join us for the day but we probably need a rough idea of numbers to purchase the meat.
It may pay to bring a chair, plates and cutlery but we will have access to a BBQ, covered area, toilet block
and possibly a kitchen. The club will provide tea and coffee.
Contact [email protected] with numbers etc.
Nominations for positions on the Tablelands Walking Club Committee close on the 16th July.
Nomination Form
The Secretary
Tablelands Walking Club Inc
PO Box 1020
Tolga 4882
We………………………………………………………………………………………………
Proposer’s Name (Block Letters) Proposer’s Signature
………………………………………………………………………………………………….
Seconder’s Name (Block Letters) Seconder’s Signature
Hereby nominate……………………………………………………………………………….
For the position of……………………………………………………………………………...
Candidates Signature…………………………………………………………………………...
Date……………………………………………………………………………………………
I accept the nomination and if elected, I agree to act in that position for the ensuing twelve (12)
months.