Semester Break Club Trips

On Thursday, April 20, I flew back to Newcastle from Byron Bay and had about 24 hours of turnaround time before leaving for the Mountaineering Club’s ‘Mega Trip’ the following afternoon. The Mega Trip was the biggest club event they had ever put on; four days and three nights camping in Kangaroo Valley, breakfasts and dinners included, with five different activities offered – canyoning, climbing, hiking, kayaking, & snorkeling. Before joining the club, I had never even heard of canyoning, but it was one of the first events that I saw when I first joined the club. I didn’t get tickets because I hadn’t yet figured out that tickets to most club events sell out within a few minutes of the time they are released (nothing I can’t handle after attending many shows and festivals that sell out in minutes!). Turns out, canyoning involves rappelling (or abseiling, as they call it here) down into canyons, often down waterfalls and into water that sits in the canyons. It sounded really cool, and I was bummed to miss out on tickets to the beginner canyoning trip that the club offered early in the semester – so I was extra excited when the mega trip was announced and canyoning was listed as one of the activities that would be offered!

During the dates of the Mega Trip, I had initially planned to go to Brisbane and do a couple days of scuba diving at Stradbroke Island. When the trip got announced, I debated for a while, discussing the possibility of going with my friend Filip, who was also keen to try canyoning and all the other activities. The trip was only $75 AUD (the equivalent of about $50 USD) whereas my dive trip was going to cost me several hundred. Ultimately, I ended up choosing the Mega Trip, because I felt that it would be a really unique experience, a great opportunity to meet more people in Newcastle, and would save me a bunch of money!

Unfortunately, there did end up being a little hiccup with my activities. When the tickets were released and I went to sign up for activity slots, something glitched with the website (to be honest, I don’t really know what happened) and my choices did not go through, even though I thought they had. I probably should have known this considering I didn’t get confirmation emails for anything, but since I had only been on one club trip previously, I did not catch this. A few days later, a club leader reached out to me saying that I had not yet signed up for activities, which is when I realized that none of my choices had gone through as I had thought. By that time, every slot on every day was full for both canyoning and kayaking, which left me with climbing, hiking, and snorkeling. I was bummed, but I made the best of it – since I was pretty much the last person to sign up, the club leaders let me sign up for climbing on both Day 1 and Day 3 (we weren’t supposed to be allowed to repeat either climbing or canyoning).

When purchasing tickets, I was also able to hire a tent, sleeping bag, and sleeping mat from the club. They have an entire gear shed full of equipment (it is quite impressive), and offer rentals of camp stoves and hiking backpacks as well (but don’t expect them to be amazing quality). A week or so before the trip, carpooling groups were arranged and details were sent out to everyone. Kenzie, the driver of the car I would be in, got in touch with me and I asked if she could perhaps pick me up from my sharehouse in Waratah West on her way to the uni on departure day – it’s only a 4-minute drive and I didn’t want to have to take the bus up to campus and walk my suitcase & other items halfway across campus. She was very nice and agreed to pick me up! She showed up in her dad’s 4WD with a trailer hooked to the back and I loaded in my backpack, suitcase (believe me, I would have rather not taken a suitcase on a camping trip; I felt totally ridiculous but I don’t have a duffle bag here), pillow (thankfully managed to remember it after completely forgetting one on the bikepacking trip), and a bag of snacks and food for my lunches.

Around 5pm, we headed to the club gear shed at the uni. I grabbed the gear I had hired from the club and started meeting other people from the club. In total, there were 50 of us going – a pretty massive camping group! Once Gabby and Kris arrived (the other two girls riding in Kenzie’s car) and we made sure that Kenzie didn’t need to throw anything else in her trailer, we headed out. The drive took us somewhere around 4 hours, including our dinner stop, so we didn’t make it to the campsite until after 9pm and had to set up camp in the dark (never a fun time). It was colder than I expected, and my warm surf camp hoodie was in my suitcase in the trailer when we arrived. Kenzie was nice enough to loan me a fleece & a down vest to wear while we set up. The four of us put our tents up close together, with a square space in the middle that we put a canopy over the next day. We all passed out as soon as possible afterward as everyone would need to get up early for their various activities the next morning.

Photos from the trip and details about each day & activity are posted in the Mountaineering Mega Trip Photolog. But, here are some overall thoughts on the trip. First, I was extremely impressed with how well-organized this trip was. Carpooling was allocated for both the way there and the way back. I’m not sure how they decided on the way there, but on the way back, everyone was sent home with the people in their activity for the last day to account for different groups finishing at different times. For dinners, there was a schedule of who would help cook and clean up each night (somehow I was not assigned either for the whole drop), and there were veggie options every night. Breakfasts were do-it-yourself, usually cereal, but one morning they had eggs, bacon, and pancakes, with a big, four (maybe even six) burner flat top camping grill to cook on. Each activity had multiple group leaders who, although (mostly) young, were very knowledgeable about their particular activity and able to teach people (like me!) with little to no experience in any given activity. Second, I was also delighted by the friendliness of everyone in the club. I felt a bit out of my element because it was strange for me to camp without all my own equipment, which I have grown used to having when I camp for festivals at home, and also because I didn’t have much experience with the activities and there were plenty members of the club who are well beyond the beginner level. Plus, of course, I am an exchange student in a foreign country and only knew a few people out of the massive group that attended the trip. Everyone was so friendly and welcoming and I could not be happier that I chose to cancel my previous plans and go on this trip! I made good friends with the girls that I rode down with, and ended up going indoor climbing with them every week for the rest of the semester.

We got back to Newcastle on Tuesday, April 24. Semester break was over at that point, but I didn’t have any classes on Monday, and Tuesday was a public holiday (ANZAC Day, essentially the Australian equivalent of Memorial Day) so all classes were canceled that day. I did not have any classes on Wednesday either, so I was able to sleep in, unpack, do my laundry, and grab groceries to last me a couple of days before my NUDES (Newcastle University Diving & Exploration Society) dive trip to Nelson Bay the following weekend. Thursday, I attended my programming lab, caught up on some homework, and stopped by the NUDES gear shed to pick out a wetsuit, BCD, and regulator that I would need to borrow for the dive trip. I also organized a ride to Nelson Bay with Nick, who had also been on the mountaineering trip and wanted to leave a bit later in the afternoon on Friday. Most of the group left mid-morning Friday, but Nick and I had homework to catch up on, so it worked out well that I was able to catch a ride with him later in the day.

We arrived at the campsite around 7pm on Friday evening after an hour-and-a-half drive. I set up my tent (hired from the mountaineering club) and socialized a bit before heating up my dinner and heading to the beach with a few people. There were only about 15 of us (a massive difference from the previous weekend), with three group leaders. We all went to bed pretty early that night and got up early the next morning to dive. Before sorting out everyone’s gear, I went to grab coffee and breakfast with a few other club members. We went up to Inner Light Tearooms, which had an absolutely stunning view of the bay.

After breakfast, we headed back to camp to sort through gear and make sure everyone had everything they needed to dive. There was quite a bit of confusion – some of the gear did not make it on the trailer due to a lack of communication, including my wetsuit and regulator. Luckily, John, one of our group leaders, had an extra regulator, and Maddy, one of the club members, had thrown in two wetsuits. One was in my size, so I was able to wear that one and she wore the other. Although, I have to say I was a bit frustrated with this, especially after having attended such a well-organized and executed club trip the weekend before.

We did a practice dive at Little Beach (only a five-minute walk from camp) and I was surprised to find that I had significantly more dive experience than many of the other club members. Many people had only just done their certifications and had not yet dived at all, or only had a few dives under their belt. It made me realize how lucky I was to have been able to get 20 dives under my belt immediately after getting certified this summer (thanks Mom & Chad!). I also realized that I had been so lucky to dive in such clear waters for those 20 dives. The visibility in Nelson Bay was a bit poor. We still saw some wildlife though – a group of cuttlefish (this was my favorite sighting of the trip, there were at least 10 of them, some juveniles, and we watched them hanging out in one spot for long enough that we could see them changing camouflage as they drifted over different materials), a wobbegong shark, and a few rays.

After lunch, we did a dive at Fly Point, which was about a fifteen-minute uphill walk from camp. Luckily, John and Ryan drove most of our gear and tanks up to the top so we didn’t have to carry it all such a far way (scuba gear is heavy). The visibility at Fly Point was better, but we didn’t move quite fast enough and had to come up after only 30 minutes because it was getting too dark. We saw a lobster, some more rays, and a big blue fish that I’ve forgotten the name of. Once we got back to camp, we rinsed all of the gear, showered (the holiday park we were camped in was really nice, with plenty of showers, a full kitchen, and several outdoor barbeques), and Feather & Ryan (the other two group leaders who were just a few years older than me) ran to the store to get food for everyone. I didn’t catch this in the group messages in time, so they didn’t get enough veggie burgers for me to have one (and the alternative was Australian sausages which I have tried once and absolutely hated), but I had another dinner to heat up anyway. Maddy also ran to the store to grab drinks, and when she got back we played a drinking game that I’d never played (and also can’t remember the name of). You lay out a big piece of cardboard on a table, and then each person tosses a coin onto the cardboard. If it lands in an empty spot, you take a marker, draw a circle of any size, and write a rule in the circle. The rule can be anything – girls drink, people sitting drink, choose someone to swap drinks with, play a game of duck duck goose, skinny dip, run to the edge of the dock while screaming at the top of your lungs (yes these are all rules that ended up on the board at the end of the night). We must have played this game for three or four hours, filling up almost the entire board. After 10pm we had to move out to the beach because the campsite does quiet hours then. I ended up going to bed around 1am, which was absolutely the right choice. The other five people that had been playing ended up staying up another couple of hours and were in rough shape the next morning. Nick even vomited off the side of his ladder up to his rooftop tent (gross, I know, but also kindof hilarious).

We were originally supposed to dive the next morning, but the trip leaders decided it would be too much work to get out all the gear again for conditions that still were not very good. Instead, we had the choice of going to Oakvale Wildlife Park, or Irukandji Sharks & Ray Encounters. At Irukandji, you could pay to swim with the sharks & rays, but I chose Oakvale because they would have a bunch of Australian wildlife that I wouldn’t otherwise get to see! We all packed up camp and grabbed a quick coffee before heading to our respective destinations. Feather drove me to Oakvale where we met two other club members, Aleeyah and Jeremy. We got to feed milk to baby goats and also bought bags of food that we fed to the other animals (ducks, wallabies, and llamas, just to name a few). Photos from throughout the day can be found in the Oakvale Wildlife Park Photolog.

And that’s a wrap on my semester break adventures! April was a crazy month. After everything, I came back to Newy and had to dive right back into the second half of the semester. The day after I got back from the dive trip, I went to my first indoor climbing night. Being a member of the mountaineering club includes free two-hour climbing sessions at Pulse in Adamstown every Monday (as long as you remember to snag the ticket the Friday before!). Kenzie picked me up (and continued to do so every Monday for the rest of the semester) and we met Gabby and Kris at Pulse. I think I fell in love with climbing after that first session, combined with the two outdoor days I did during the mega trip. I loved it as a kid and I’m really excited to be getting back into it. That’s all for now! Don’t forget to check out the Photologs mentioned in this post!