Date: 5+6/4/2025
Trip leader: Adam
Party: Abhinav, Brian, Felix, Grace, Irlanda, Isla, Jimmy (Jinmin), Johnston, Lin Lin, Rishi, Ryan, Sarah, Eric (Shibo), Stefan, Talia, Tooba, Vincent, Vyom, Terry (Wing Chun), Shawn (Xiaofan), Emma (Xinyi)
Freshers Trip is a SUBW tradition enshrined in the constitution. As with the PBT, running the Freshers Trip forms part of the official duties of the committee. The idea is to give new members of the club an introduction into overnight bushwalking so that they can venture into many of the more difficult multiday walks that require previous experience. This particular year, we set our sights on the beginner friendly Ingar campground, halfway between Woodford and Wentworth Falls.
So, with a team of 18 (including committee members and freshers and everyone in between), we set off from Woodford station at 11:14AM. The total walk in is ~10.5km and mostly follows fire trail so there wasn’t anything too out of the ordinary until we hit Bedford Creek, except for the standard book fridge that you’ll find on many bushwalks.
Once we had reached Bedford Creek, we invaded another walker’s lunch spot for some fuel before the climb up to the campground. She didn’t seem to mind and had a pretty long conversation with Eric.
Soon enough, lunch was over and the creek was our next obstacle. Some opted to take their shoes off and just send it through, while the rest of us bushbashed around to cross on a fallen tree. Once we were on the other side, we began heading up to the campsite. The total climb is only around 200m over 1.5km so it’s nothing crazy but if it’s your first time carrying a pack it can be a bit of a challenge so I commend the efforts of our freshers.
By 2:30pm, we had set up camp and met Weiting who had arrived at the campsite earlier in the day. Our 15 tents were spread around the area we had laid claim to, some tiny and some big enough to stand up in. We mostly just relaxed amongst our tent city and watched as Eric chopped some firewood he found lying around with an axe he brought. It probably didn’t need to be chopped but I suppose one does not carry in an axe and not use it.
A party of 3 who had missed our train but were still keen later joined us at the campsite relatively unscathed.
By 5:30 the first signs of flames were in our fire ring and the wine stump was constructed. On the wine list that night were none other than Daniel Murphy’s finest bags, a Squealing Pig Pinot Noir, a Redknot Shiraz and a Brown Brothers Moscato. Many thanks to Terry and Vincent for joining me in sacrificing ultralight status and carrying a bagnum in.
We gathered around the wine stump as Isla and Vincent mulled some of the shiraz. Compliments to the vintners of the mulled wine as it was actually pretty good, even Vincent’s spontaneous addition of eucalyptus leaves was most welcome.
Dark came so we did as campers do and hung around the campfire. With the freshers now privy to the story of the purple feather, I decided we should go explore Mt Bedford. Not many takers for a bushbash at 8:30pm I’m afraid but our party of 4: Terry, Abhinav, Ryan and myself set off on a quest to explore.
We saw absolutely nothing but the track was pretty easy to follow (albeit overgrown) and I’m sure we would’ve been able to see a cool view if we were smart enough to go during the day. We eventually hit a ridiculously muddy section and called it quits ~800m in.
Those of us who had consumed far too much wine to reason logically had an argument about whether the end of daylight savings meant we would gain or lose an extra hour of sleep that night. I thought to resolve this in potentially the dumbest way possible and set my phone’s time to 2:59am in anticipation for what would happen once it ticked over, 2am or 4am?? Sure enough, the conclusion was that we would gain a magical free hour of sleep (how good is time!) and thus if we were to leave at 7 the next morning we’d really be leaving at 8.
With the bagnums now depleted and the air getting ever colder, we made a final water filtering run to the billabong by the campsite and headed to bed.
The next morning we all rose pretty early (7am, which would’ve been 8am had we not been gifted the extra hour), made our breakfast and some even started a morning campfire.
We were all eventually packed up by 8:30 and away we went, off to Wentworth Falls with all 21 participants.
There’s 10km of fire trail before we hit the road which we all slogged through at our own pace, the only interesting part being the detour around private property at the end including a stop at Kings Tableland Aboriginal Place.
We then walked via Wentworth Falls and then up to Wentworth Falls station to catch the train back to Sydney and for some of us (who will remain anonymous) to do our assignments that have been left too late.
