The final navigation weekend of 2022! A private navigation weekend for a family group with little Lena who has just turned 7! Lena loves bushwalking, especially the rock scrambling sections and she showed off her rock climbing skills whenever we reached a rocky climb. We had the entire area to ourselves and didn’t see another soul the whole weekend. The large rock shelter was peaceful and quiet with just the 5 of us camped there. It was great protection for the wind which picked up a few hours before dawn. Sunday was very windy and we picked a different route back than the usual nav weekend route. This involved crossing the river at a different place and climbing an exciting and scenic ridge to a fire trail. The clients learned the full suite of navigation skills on this modified route and Lena declared that it was a great fun weekend when we enjoyed tea, coffee and pies at a café on the way home. A great weekend and well done Lena!

The annual SUBW Christmas Dinner Walk to the Coxs River. One of my favourite weekends of the year, a tradition going back to my earliest bushwalking days. This year I took a group of SUBW members for an introductory abseiling session on Saturday morning before we headed down to the river for our relaxing camping weekend on a cool summer evening. A lovely weekend enjoyed by all.

On this trip we packed the content of the 2 day navigation weekend into a single day for a group of teachers from Ryde TAFE. Being a warm summer’s day we picked a route which would provide some challenging off-trail navigation leading to a delightful waterhole and lunch time swim! The TAFE teachers were here on a personal development training day, and they gained a wealth of practical navigation skills and techniques to complement the curriculum based navigation training that they provide their Cert III students. It was a long and full day of learning on a complete round trip hike which, with the lunch time swim, was a great day that everyone will remember. A great day out!

It was a cool and cloudy Saturday morning at Bell for the start of the navigation weekend with a little drizzle. But by lunch time this had begun to clear and the weather continued to improve and become warmer throughout the weekend. This was the first 2 day navigation weekend of the 2023 season and with a full group of 10 clients it got the 2023 season off to a flying start. A great group of keen navigators and an awesome weekend was had by all. Our campsite we had to ourselves in an awesome location. As well as learning a whole heap of new skills in the navigation training, the clients enjoyed a scenic bushwalk in a beautiful part of the Blue Mountains. Whilst a few found the hiking hard, a fantastic weekend was had by all.

We were all in safe hands on this navigation weekend, with 3 doctors, a paramedic, a nurse and 2 pilots being among the group of 9 awesome navigators attending on this damp and drizzly weekend. We saw not a shred of blue sky on the entire weekend and the cloud hung low over the highest peaks, temporarily obscuring the views. But this didn’t dampen our spirits at all and there was enough visibility to read the landscape, and the fog and drizzle gently drifting through the trees with their shiny wet trunks made for beautiful scenery for this educational hike. We saw no one else out there on the entire weekend and on a damp afternoon we found a huge rock overhang that provided a dry and sheltered spot to camp. A lovely evening was spent by a warm campfire and throughout the weekend the group learned a wealth of new navigation skills to equip them with the confidence to venture out into wild places again. And I’m sure all will be keen to do just that after such a fun and educational weekend in the bush!

This navigation weekend was a real adventure! It started on a beautiful clear Saturday morning but over the weekend the weather gradually deteriorated so that by about mid-morning on Sunday we were thoroughly drenched in pouring rain. This didn’t dampen the spirits of the 7 enthusiastic navigators who joined this adventurous weekend! The scenery was amazing as the weather progressed from clear sunny 360 degree views to misty drizzle that offered a mystical and other-worldly perspective to the labyrinthine pagoda landscape with its broken cliffs and steep gorges. This is a great place to learn the skills of bush navigation due to the complex and varied terrain presenting a wide range of opportunities to learn skills suited to specific landscapes. And despite the rain, the campsite was a beautiful place. A fantastic weekend enjoyed by all, and an adventure to cross the steep gorge of the Wollangambe in the very wet weather! Well done to all!