Newsletter Issue 3

Dear Fellow Adventurers,

Well, Winter is well and truly with us now. But don’t worry, a bit of bad weather can’t stop Friends of Adventure! We’ve still got some great stuff going on in defiance of the rain.
Our next event will be taking place very soon on the weekend of the 7th and 8th of July. We’re going to head down to Margaret River on the Saturday for some adventuring and stay the night at Glenbrook Cottages just south of the Margaret River township. On the Saturday we’re going to take in some caving and abseiling and depending on the weather we might head out to the Willyabrup Sea Cliffs for a big abseil on Sunday morning before heading home. If it’s raining we’ll just go underground instead!

Anyone is welcome to join us on our weekend adventure. This event is for people who want to have an enjoyable active weekend and also for people who want to build up log book time or skills in abseiling. If you wish to attend let us know by replying to this email or filling out the booking form on our website. The accommodation will be in a dorm room and will cost $15 per person. We’ll probably eat out on the Saturday night. There is an $8 fee for abseiling and a $6 fee for caving that is collected by the Department of Environment and Conservation. Contact us if you are interested in carpooling down to Margaret River and splitting the fuel costs.

Breaking News

Last month the Friends of Adventure team went on a scouting trip down south for new and exciting abseil sites for our trainees and adventure enthusiasts. We are looking for a good location to teach multi-pitch abseiling and rescuing techniques. Multi-pitch abseiling is used for very long abseils or difficult terrain and involves the need to switch to different ropes mid-abseil.
We went looking for some hard-core abseil sites down in the Stirling and Porongurup Ranges in the Great Southern Region of WA. All I can say is that we found what we were looking for….!
The mountains in this region are an abseiler’s dream. Our first stop was Castle Rock in the Porongurup Ranges. Castle Rock is a sheer slab of granite that looms around 50m straight up. From the top it has panoramic views of the surrounding bush and farmland. It offers beginner abseils right up to the big drop off Castle Rock itself.

The next day we investigated a tip-off we got from a local volunteer ranger. He told us about an abseil site that the local SES used to train on years ago but hasn’t been used since. On his advice, we drove out to Mount Trio in the Stirling Ranges to have a scout around. We were impressed by the potential we saw.

Mount Trio sits in the heart of the Stirling Ranges and has an altitude of 856m. We hiked the 1.5km to the summit of the tallest Trio peak and then had to bush bash down to the craggy cliffs that we had seen from the carpark (pictured right). There are several faces that would be possible to abseil, including the overhang that you can see in the photo. The abseil would be at least 100 metres, although it’s impossible to tell for sure until we throw some lines over and have a go. Once you get to the bottom of the abseil where the treeline starts you’d have to scramble up a steep crack back up to the summit. We’re planning to develop Mount Trio as a training site for Mutli-pitch descents and rescues in the near future. Watch this space for more news as the adventure unfolds.

Well, that’s all for now. Remember to book in for our Margaret River Adventure as soon as possible so that we can book the accommodation.

Hope to see you there.

Discover More ...