View south from morning tea to the top of the Orroral Valley, Mt McKeahnie and our objective knoll
Wednesday 13 April: Geocaching McKeahnie in the Middle – L/R,ptX . That says it all.
4 of us drove in 1 vehicle to the new Square Rock Walking Track car park.
Summary
Distance: 15.4km | Climb: 645m | Time: 7.00am-2.45pm (7hrs 45mins), including 35 mins of breaks | Grading: L/R,ptX; H(12+)
Photographs
Photographs are available, where you can start a large sized slideshow.
Videos
Waypoint and Track Files
Download the .gpx file. (Right click, Save Link As…, Save – if you want to use it.)
To use in Google Earth, do File, Open… and select Gps or All files as the File Type.
Track Notes
Cankid dreamed up this walk and I was happy to be in the party, which included living legend ACT cacher Tankengine and Marmaduke Rothschild. TE was up for his 9000th cache!
First time I’d walked the new Square Rock Walking Track. Some nice track work at the beginning. We covered the 3.9km to where I go bush on the Orroral Lookout track in 50mins.
The leg to McKeahnie trig is no better and the pea regrowth remains at head height. I foolishly took the lead – I was a bit weary from yesterday. Anyway, we knocked off the 2.7km in 1hr 35mins. 2 of the party logged GC22FTP McKeahnie Minor whilst the cache owner looked on. We spent 10mins there. I’d been here on 11 Jan 14.
Hugh had sussed out on Google Earth the enormous granite tors down the ridge to the SW, so we took a line to the east of the crest which got us past the worst of it. 570m to the south in 35mins we stopped on a granite slab for morning tea, with our objective knoll tucked under Mt McKeahnie.
The next leg to the cache looked easy, but it started off a bugger. It took 12mins to descend 200m across the ground through a lot of large fallen trees and regrowth. Things then got (relatively) easier and after a bit of searching TE located and logged his 9000th cache! Congrats! The GZ was not as fearsome as the spoiler made it out to be. The other 3 of us logged a find of GC245R6 McKeahnie in the Middle too. From morning tea to the cache was 470m across the ground, taking 30mins. We spent 15mins at the GZ, taking a few photos and patting ourselves on the back.
For the return, we tried a more easterly and wider flank of the McKeahnie trig ridge. It was slightly easier going, with no hugely steep climbs. Near the trig I was most grateful for Roger taking the lead. We pushed on to find a small area of rock in a sea of regrowth for lunch. This leg 1.8km in 1hr 30mins. It was nice to sit down.
Cankid took the lead after lunch. Oh to be young and fit! We flew! The only way to slow him up was to advise that if he walked at that fast pace through dense regrowth, we wouldn’t let him join CBC! Tankengine took the lead as we passed the stone arrangement and popped us out on the Orroral Lookout track. This leg 1.6km in 55mins.
I demanded the icing on my cake, with TE the cache owner taking us to his GC184R1 Orroral Overview. The other 3 of us logged it.
A trot down the walking track to the car.
Great day, hard work, excellent company. I’d like to do this sort of trip again!
Track Maps
Track overview
Track 1
Track 2
Profile
Party
4 walkers – Cankid (Hugh C), Marmaduke Rothschild (Roger E), Tankengine (Thomas S), (JohnnyBoyACT) me.