By Julie McDonald, publicity officer for The Illawarra Ramblers
Local members of the community have been enjoying adventures with the Illawarra Ramblers. Thanks to Robert Lynn and Pat Robson from Oak Flats for taking the time to tell us more.
Tell us about your involvement with the Illawarra Ramblers.
Robert: We got involved with the Ramblers once we retired – we’d seen this group of people riding by Lake Illawarra and we eventually asked them who they were and so forth. As it sounded very much like our type of thing, we joined soon afterwards.
We go kayaking on Lake Illawarra and surrounding rivers most Thursdays and on Mondays we join the Illawarra bike rides.
We’ve also been on many of the multi-day trips away and as we have a camper trailer, we’re well set up. We’ve also been to Lord Howe Island, which was well organised and put together, with excellent accommodation and food and a great group of people from the Ramblers and National Parks Association. The snorkelling was amazing.
So you’re keen bike riders and paddlers?
Pat: Robert introduced me into bike riding and we’ve done two of the Big Rides run by Bicycle NSW and the Sydney to Wollongong MS rides.
Robert: Funnily enough we got into kayaking through Dragon Boat racing. We’ve represented Australia and raced in Penang, Singapore and New Zealand. As well as our involvement with Port Hacking Dragon Boat Club, we were also involved with the Illawarra Dragons Abreast when they started.
Pat and I were coaches and I was also an accredited sweep (i.e. the person who steers the boat). We used to come down from Sydney to help train the Illawarra Dragons on alternate weekends. Since moving to Oak Flats, kayaking has taken over from Dragon Boats – it’s a lot easier than organising a team of 20, plus a sweep and drummer!
Some of the long bike rides we’ve done with the Ramblers have included a two-week trip from Narooma to Port Fairy in Victoria. Our most recent ride was on several Victorian Rail trails in Central Victoria and East Gippsland. On this trip, my e-bike failed and I had to do a lot of pedalling uphill and into headwinds! We succumbed to purchasing e-bikes a couple of years ago.
Atrocious weather on some of the kayak and bike trips has also made them memorable, with lots of reminiscences when we get together at happy hour.
We’ve also done Ramblers’ kayaking trips on the Murray and Murrumbidgee rivers, Mallacoota area (before the 2019/20 bushfires), Southern and Northern NSW. One of the most scenic kayaking trips was in Tasmania which included trips from Dover, Southport and Huon River in the bays and rivers in the south east, then across to the west coast to kayak on the magnificent and pristine Henty, Pieman and Arthur rivers. The scenery and wildlife were amazing, we even saw platypus and spent a day at the fascinating Zeehan mining museum.
Pat: We’ve had some pretty interesting times – Robert had a heart attack while paddling down the Murray River. On this trip we were camping out of the kayaks.
Oh my goodness, that sounds pretty serious!
Pat: It was scary at the time but he was very lucky, because of his general fitness. There were a lot of logistics involved in getting from the river to hospital!
Robert: Pat had to organise collecting our double kayak, getting back to where we’d left the camper trailer and packing it up. During that trip one of the other women also had a major health issue. All in all an eventful trip, not many Ramblers have had these experiences, thank goodness. But it didn’t quench our enthusiasm.
We used to do walks with the Ramblers, but less so now. We’ve done most of the bush walks we really wanted to do around the escarpment – Pigeon House, Drawing Room rocks, Macquarie Pass etc.
Can you tell me a little bit about yourselves?
Robert: I grew up in this area. My parents moved from Sydney to Port Kembla when I was about four years old, and I went to the Port Kembla primary school, and then the high school. After finishing school I studied metallurgy, went overseas like most young people did in those days. When I came back, I initially worked at Unanderra, then left the Illawarra and for many years worked in Sydney in a variety of jobs. I studied accountancy and ended up working for John Holland, a major construction company, in senior finance positions until I retired.
Pat: I met Robert in 1992 and we got married in ’93. I’m a girl from the bush and grew up around Wagga Wagga. I moved to Sydney to do my nursing training at Prince Henry Hospital and then midwifery in Canberra. I worked all over the place in Queensland, NSW, Victoria and overseas; got married, had kids and then divorced.
I wanted to get out of nursing before I got too much older and did a social work degree, ending up at Bowral working for the local area health service until I retired.
We both have grown-up kids and a few grandkids – some are down here in the Illawarra; others are further afield.
How did you end up back in the Illawarra?
Pat: We’d been thinking of moving down to the Illawarra for a while. When we found this house in Oak Flats, we didn’t think much of it from the front, but when we walked inside and saw the panoramic view of Lake Illawarra and the escarpment from our back door, we were hooked.
We don’t have to get the car out to do the things we like doing: a bike track runs right by the house and if the lake is looking good, we can launch our kayaks from the backyard and go for a paddle.
Robert: The Ramblers are such a great group of people… The beauty of becoming a member is you look at the program and decide what you’d like to do and feel able to do, as the activities are graded in terms of their difficulty.
There’s no commitment; you just go when you feel like it. We highly recommend that people who are looking for a variety of activities to suit their level of fitness and enthusiasm join the Illawarra Ramblers for friendship and a good time.
Join the Ramblers
Contact Anne Murdoch on 0490 963 180 or email illawarraramblers@gmail.com to discuss trialling two activities. For more details, visit www.illawarraramblers.com.au