Johnny Boy's Walkabout Blog

Saturday 12 August 2023: Interesting Sites around Yankee Hat car park * – M/E-M, ptW. This walk starts with a round of the very pleasant Rendezvous Creek Track. It provides access for further walking up the creek valley. Then, depending on the clearance of vehicles available, we either walk or drive the Old Boboyan Road to Yankee Hat car park. From there, we walk a loop around the feature to the SW on old fire trails and the Old Boboyan Rd.
Points of interest include Ready-Cut Cottage, views to Gudgenby Homestead, an old stone wall, axe grinding grooves, the confluence of Bogong Creek and Middle Creek forming the start of the Gudgenby River, Foresters Hut, Frank and Jacks Hut and stockyard and dip, an indigenous site. The pièce de resistance will hopefully be a visit to a site described as a ‘brick factory’ by geocacher Tankengine and recently pictured in a Tim the Yowie Man article. Around 21km and 450vm climb, with wet feet walking through the two Hospital Creek fords. Subtract around 8km and no wet feet if we can drive into Yankee Hat car park, making 13km and 450vm.

Summary

From Garmin Connect (MAP66i) – Distance: 15.72km | Climb: 430vm | Time: 5hrs 50mins including driving between walks, sites inspection, smoko and lunch | Grading: M/E-M; M(8).

Photographs Photographs are available here.

gpx File The gpx file is available here.

Track Notes

It’s been 4 years since I’ve been in this area. So good to get back in here, revisit some old sites and a new one. Although my companions didn’t go wild over a line of stones, most of the sites were new to them.

We drove to the (new) Revdezvous Creek car park.

Walk 1

This was a round of the Rendezvous Creek Walking track. Great views to the NE ridge (although not as far up to Orca Rock) and the western Mavis Ridge. Rendezvous Creek usually flows swiftly in this area. Views also out onto the grasslands. 

We then drove in the Old Boboyan (Bobeyan) Road to the Ready-Cut Cottage turnoff.

Walk 2

We walked down the old road to the Cottage. Great fire pit! Read all I know about the Hudson Ready-Cut Cottage.

We went down to the (new) foot bridge over the Gudgenby River and crossed to the huge granite slab covered in moss. Read all I know about the old foot bridge.

Gudgenby Homestead is a stylish building, built around 1964. Read all I know about Gudgenby Homestead.

Returned via the footbridge.

A short detour to a little stone wall.

Back at the cars, we negotiated the Hospital Creek fords with ease in the SUVs and drove about 800m.

Walk 3

This short foray took us down to the Gudgenby River to search for some axe grinding grooves. No luck today. Our return was via a line of stones, perhaps remnant fence supports. Much glee for me; my companions were perhaps not as interested.

We drove to Yankee Hat car park.

Walk 4

The views from here always thrill me. Memories flood back of many trips up Middle Creek to Mts Burbidge, Namadgi and Kelly, short walks via the Yankee Hat Rock Art to Yankee Hat North (the real Yankee Hat) and Yankee Hat South, visits to Bogong Falls, climbs of Mt Gudgenby and overnight trips south, west and north to various destinations up Sams Creek Fire Trail. I hope my companions become enthused to visit these wonderful destinations. Yankee Hat car park is the track head for all these trips.

We walked down to where the Bogong Creek bridge and boardwalk used to be.

Turning right along footpads new to me along the open bank of Bogong Creek, we passed quiet reaches of the waterway.

At a narrow point, there’s still a crossing plank that’s been there for some years.

Richard proved that it still works.

A little further downstream the confluence of Bogong Creek and Middle Creek form the Gudgenby River.

We returned to the car park for morning tea.

Walk 5

After munchies we set off on fire trails around the feature to the south of the car park. First stop was at the Foresters Hut.

Further along the eastern side fire trail we had a good view to the rocks on the side of Hospital Hill. I always use this as an aiming point when walking out of Middle Creek and call it the baby/smiling face. Many can’t recognise the simulacra. A few more converts today, one member saying it looks like Stewie from American Family.

Rounding the southern flank of the hill we popped up into the bush a bit to Tankengine’s fabulous ‘brick factory’. Amazing how he finds such features.

A geology expert, Peter, suggests:

I think that you have a latter fine-grained thin dyke intruding earlier larger grained coolish granite. The later dyke has then cooled, the rock has shrunk, and the resultant stresses in the plane of the dyke has cause the dyke to crack in two directions are right angles to each other. The right angle is probably due to other stresses. This is similar to getting hexagonal columns in thick dolerite or larva flows with very slow cooling.

And a more detailed explanation, from Doug, is here.

A line then to Frank and Jacks Hut for lunch.

We visited the nearby Sheep Dip.

Our last site for the day was an indigenous one, a rock shelter identified in Johnathan Winston-Gregson’s 1978 MA thesis ‘A register of archaeological sites in the proposed Gudgenby National Park’ as GR2 Rock Shelter.

Look closely. There’s some chicken wire at the base, not doing much of a job in preventing wombats undermining the boulder.

That was it and we walked back along the Old Boboyan Road to the cars.

Track Map

The AllTrails map is here where you can pan and zoom.

Party

12 walkers – Helen B, Joanne H, Richard H, Andrew J, Stephen J, Jacqui M, Cole N, Helen O, Jingjing P, Lam S, Michael Z, me.

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