On 24th July ten of us met at the Mt Rosea Car park for a walk into the Bugiga campground. We headed up the track in very overcast weather and met Mark Whyte the new parky looking after tracks and roads. He escorted us to the campground, we arrived just as a heavy shower came through. We took cover under the shelter and experienced the gale wind sweeping up the mountain gap and straight through the shelter, which has been aligned to take advantage of the view but does not give protection from the prevailing wind. While in the shelter we noted that there were no tables only long bench style seats. The campground has been constructed with steel and timber. The walk ways are all raised timber which blend in with the surrounds, the tent pads are hard wood and also raised. We did note there was nowhere to anchor a tent in lieu of tent pegs in the ground. (there is a railing, but it doesn’t suit all tents).
The walk way is terraced to allow for the slope in the ground and we noted that this could be hard to negotiate in the dark on your way to the toilets. The toilets although iron and rusted brown are a very large structure and very prominent as you walk into the site. We suggested that for future campsites something with more curves and less imposing would be good. All human waste is to be taken off the site and this has presented many challenges.
am sure there will be many lessons learned from this first campsite and hopefully as future camps are constructed along the walk there aesthetics to blend into and with minimum impact on the environment will be achieved. As we were all now very damp and cold we adjourned to the Halls Gap Pub for tea where we were met by our webmaster Frank van der Peet and Sylvia, it was good to catch up with them once more.
Margo had some excellent photos of the campsite in the last newsletter and they were captured on a much sunnier day than the one we experienced.
Wendy