Johnny Boy's Walkabout Blog

Saturday 16 November 2024: Geocaching and exploring around Camels Hump * – M/M-R,ptX. An explore around Camels Hump for 2 geocaches and a little look-see down to the NW of Camels Hump. Camelback FT, cut the corner, towards (but not up) Johns Peak, back to the FT junction for the second cache, up Camels Hump followed by a little explore down the spur to the NW of the top for 500m. Around 15km and 850vm. At a 76yo’s pace 😊.

Summary

From Garmin Connect (recorded on Epix Gen 2) – Distance: 15.52km | Climb: 820vm | Time: 3:37 moving + 2:12 of stops = 5:49 | Grading: L/E-M,ptX; H(12).

Photographs

View photographs here. More photos in the album than are embedded in this report.

gpx file

Download the gpx file here.

Track Maps

Here’s where we went.

Trip Report

I was last on Camels Hump on 15 Apr 24. I was last on the spur to Camels Hump on 16 Mar 13.

The TNR early Ranger was 2 minutes early, so we were through the gate, parked at Mountain Creek carpark and walking at 7.37am. The Tidbinbilla Range was clouded over as we drove out, but the day cleared. We appreciated an early start with the maximum temperature in Canberra on the day at 29degC.

The boredom of the Camelback Fire Trail was broken by the number of wildflowers about.

I was hurrying to catch my companions.

Around 500m shy of the track junction into Johns Peak we struck off up through the bush to cut the corner. Lovely country, grassy and damp from the morning’s cloud. We hit the Johns Peak footpad on the crest and turned south for a bit to find and log geocache GCAJBGM Ogle the Hump. A great location just off the footpad in some rocks with a grand view down the North Arm of Burkes Creek. We could also look north to the site of the third geocache location. Muggle Stephen M made the find.

We turned about and headed NE to the intersection of the footpad and the Camelback Fire Trail. A Ranger was nearly parked on our next geocache, GCAZHYB Camels Continues. A Tankengine hide and in beautiful condition as usual.

A bit further up the FT we came to …

Pleasing that the Hump was a new destination for two in the party.

Staggering views on the way up to smoko at the large cairn.

After our break we took a line down the NW spur to the final geocache location. There were a few of these about.

GC2J9GX Canberra’s Toughest Challenge is indeed that! To claim it, one has to complete 10 tough traditional caches plus 10 tough multi-caches plus 10 tough puzzles. Marmaduke Rothschild and I signed the log so we didn’t have to come back in the vain possibility that we ever finish those 30 caches. But, of course, we couldn’t log it on geocaching.com.

All objectives completed we turned about and I puffed the 150vm back up to Camels Hump for lunch.

A wonderful field of yam daisies at the top.

Views down to the Camelback Fire Trail as we set off.

And the huge views south along the Tidbinbilla Range.

Even I was able to scurry down to the car park as the day warmed up.

Thanks for your company guys and for the plans made.

Party

6 walkers – Chris D, Roger E, Stephen J, Stephen M, Damian S, me.

AllTrails

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

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Additional Trip Reports

As I age, I’m doing a few more simple hikes. I don’t always produce a full trip report. If you’re interested, you can find details of them on the Completed Walks tab. There you can access the trip’s map segment, download a gpx file, see the distance, climb and grading, and link through to the photo album. Additional metrics are available by looking at the start waypoint on the map segment – moving time, stopped time, total time.