Beautiful view from Dairy Farmers Hill

Tuesday 20 January: Finish the Cbr100Challenge 50km route – L/E. Not your usual Tuesday walk. Meet on Red Hill and walk Melbourne Ave, Parliament House, Commonwealth Ave bridge, north side of lake to Glen Loch interchange, Arboretum, Scrivener Dam, Curtin, Deakin and back to the start. Around 28km at a brisk pace. Surely there will be coffee somewhere. Map: Canberra. Leader: John Evans 0417 436 877 john@johnevans.id.au . Transport: Drive yourself, but please contact me if you need a lift and I’ll try to assist. Late bookings considered.

3 of us met on Red Hill at 7am.

Summary

Distance: 27.4km | Climb: 510m | Time: 7.00am-12.10pm (5hrs 10mins), with 10 mins of breaks | Grading: L/E; M(10)

Track Maps

The overview is published on the NSW LPI Topoview 2006 digital map. The detailed track maps are published on GPSOZ’s OZraster maps, which we made (I think) in 2011. So there may be a little more detail on Tracks 1-7, and I could certainly zoom in more before taking the screen capture, hopefully resulting in a clearer idea of the track.

Track overview

Track 1

Track 2

Track 3

Track 4

Track 5

Track 6

Track 7

Profile

Photographs

Photographs are available here, where you can start a large sized slideshow.

gpx File

Download the .gpx file here. (Right click, Save Link As…, Save – if you want to use it.)

kml File

Download the .kml file here.

Track Notes

This is becoming a recurring theme (nightmare for me) – sore feet and ladies walking my socks off. At least the weather was kind to us – cloudy and cool, although a little humid. The sun made its first appearance right on 12 noon.

So the object of this walk was to finish my best guess of the Cbr100Challenge 50km route that we started  on 10 Jan 15. We met on Red Hill – no paid parking there.

We walked back along Red Hill Dr to the corner by the reservoir where, on the opposite side of the road, we followed the steps down past the Tardis and down the side of Red Hill. Plenty of steps which may be new since I was last here. Across Mugga Lane and down the little wiggly bit to join Melbourne Avenue. Down Melbourne Ave to State Circle and cross at the lights. Clockwise around to under Adelaide Avenue. Just after here we picked up the beginning of a footpad and, carefully crossing the cloverleaf feeder off Adelaide Ave to State Circle, picked up the track that runs between State and Capital Circles to Scriveners camp site. Joined the bike path that doubles back under Capital Circle and winds up through the side of the Parliament House gardens. Quite delightful. Around the corner of Parliament Drive and across to the top of Federation Mall. This leg 3.9km in 45mins.

They were setting up for the Australian Day concert, so we could not go over to the Federation Stone, the nominal start/finish of the Canberra Centenary Trail. Down Federation Mall, over the land bridge over State Circle with views to the lovely rock cutting, around the NW (left) side of Old Parliament House, down past the Aboriginal Tent Embassy and the National Rose Garden, beside Questacon and to the paths along the edge of Lake Burley Griffin. Turned left and walked across Commonwealth Avenue Bridge. Around the side of Barrine Drive and to Westside@ActonPark. This leg 2.8km in 30mins.

From here, bike path all the way along the North side of the lake to the lights on Lady Denman Drive. Hard on the feet and, with lots of commuting cyclists, we had to walk single file and carefully. One guy ran past us at a very good pace wearing leather thongs; another runner dragged off a bike rider going up hill. This leg 3.9km in 40mins.

Staying on the bike path through GlenLoch Interchange, it was under Caswell Drive, under Old Caswell Dr (so the sign said – it’s the road into the Black Mountain car park which comes off William Hovell Drive) and into the Cork Oak Plantation. This is always a lovely peaceful area. Out the Southern end of the cork oaks and soon turning West up the broad dirt road below the edge of the Himalayan Cedars. We sort of followed our nose at the top/back of ‘Wide Brown Land’ on the top of what my map says is Lakeside Hill. We got onto Himalayan Cedar Rd which took us down to Forest Drive. We followed this past the back of the Village. Things went a bit pear-shaped here. In plotting my best guess of the Cbr100Challenge 50km route from the published map, it’s fairly obvious that the route doesn’t go to Dairy Farmer Hill. It skirts it. We got onto Quarry Rd then, as we were supposed to be heading for the power lines, we eventually ended up cross country. In the end I couldn’t be bothered, so we cross-countried up to Dairy Farmers Hill for the view and morning tea. This leg 5km in 55mins. 10mins of morning tea.

We exited the Arboretum via Forest Rd, then footpath, roadside, bike path under the Tuggeranong Parkway and across Lady Denman Drive at the lights. Down to the National Rock Garden on the edge of the Lindsay Pryor Arboretum car park, round the corner of a fence and onto the lakeside bike path. Followed our noses along it over Scrivener Dam, up beside Lady Denman Dr, under Cotter Rd (just stay on the bike path, it takes a few curls), under McCulloch St, around the back of the houses in NE Curtin and over Yarra Glen. This leg 8.3km in 1hr 30mins. Again, hard on the feet.

A little hard to work out how the proposed route goes here. We followed a dirt track that took us to Beale Cres, which we took to intersect with Denison St. There is perhaps an easement between the Woden School and Alfred Deakin High, but instead of faffing around I just went over to Carruthers St and we followed that up to Kent St. Down Kent St, crossed at the lights, doubled back to go up the North side of the Deakin Telecom building and the Deakin Offices. Pleased to find a gate into the Red Hill NR and, 100m further on, the NR sign.  We followed the management trail up through the reservoirs, across Gowrie Drive and walked up the side of Red Hill Dr to our cars. This final leg 3.5km in 40mins.

Many thanks or your company, Jenni And Chris. My self-esteem suffered badly.

Party

3 walkers – Jenni C, Chris F, me.

Next Tuesday Walk

None scheduled yet and I have visitors.

Latest News – Cbr100Challenge have published the official gpx file here.