Johnny Boy's Walkabout Blog

Saturday 20 July: Rendezvous Creek Rock Art – M/M. Visit the Rendezvous Creek indigenous rock art site and several other points of interest along the way. Start with a stroll along a leg of the Rendezvous Creek Walking Track, with a look at Paddy Moore’s Hut site. Then out onto the Gudgenby grasslands for 3 geocaches, one near a SODAR (Sonic Detection And Ranging) installation. We follow an old vehicle track past an old map-marked landing ground to the Rowleys Rendezvous Creek Hut site and nearby stockyard (for another cache). The route continues to parallel Rendezvous Creek with granite tors on the surrounding ridges. A respectful visit to the rock art. Return is similar, including a visit to T Brayshaws or J Greenfields Hut site and the other leg of the Rendezvous Creek Walking Track. Around 14km and 300m climb. Mainly open country walking; a few hundred metres of scrub surrounding the rock art. Map: Rendezvous Creek. Leader: John Evans 0417 436 877 john@johnevans.id.au . Transport: ~$12.

Summary

Distance: 14.8km | Climb: 350m | Time: 8.20am – 2.00pm (5hrs 40mins), including 50 mins of breaks and caching time | Grading: M/E-M; M(9)

Photographs

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

Waypoint and Track Files

Download the gpx file for this trip (if your browser does not automatically download the file, it will open the gpx file in a new window and you can then save it). To use in Google Earth, do File, Open… and select Gps or All files as the File Type.

Track Notes

A few late withdrawals, but a great crew of 16 met at 7.30am opposite my old folks home. Piled into 4 vehicles and set off down the Boboyan Road from overcast and above 0°C conditions to blue sky, frosty ground and -4°C.

Sorted ourselves out at the Rendezvous Creek car park and set off on the Walking Track in the freezing shade. We took the southern loop of the track, over the bridge and up into the sun to Paddy Moore’s Hut site.

Up to the bench and seats, then a wander a little south of west to cross the Rendezvous Creek old vehicle track. Nearly warming up, and very pleasant to just swan along.

We had an excellent tail end Charlie in Terrylea who mustered the mob and counted us at every opportunity.

So I had not a worry in the world, except for the first geocache named in my honour by Marmaduke Rothschild:

On the 29th June 2019 JohnnyBoyACT stated that he had found all Traditional caches in the Namadgi National Park except for two, with plans well in place for finding the last two. 

Well as of to-day there are now three for him to find. JB is planning a three day birthday trip to Mt Namadgi in November so my birthday present is a short detour to this new cache. 

Cache is on the open grasslands with good views all round.

He provided no help with the find, but I had a grand team of eyes and it was soon found. A log of GC8A81M JB ACT.

We continued over the open grasslands to the SW to the next cache, located near an interesting installation. The cache owner’s description is:

SODAR is an abbreviation for Sonic Detection And Ranging. It emits sounds into the atmosphere to measure wind speed and direction at different altitudes up to 900 metres above the ground.

Once transmitted, a fraction of the sound bounces back into the equipment. The strength of this returned signal provides information about the turbulence and temperature of the atmosphere above.

Additionally, to the south, you can see the tall mast associated with this weather station.

Note: There is a similar site at Tidbinbilla. The cache is not hidden on any of the equipment.

Geocache GC8ABCV SODAR Site duly logged.

Finally to the SW we found and logged GC8ABBZ Boulder Bottom.

We returned generally north to the vehicle track, coming in at the old map-marked landing field. Then on to Rowleys Rendezvous Creek Hut site for morning tea.

Refreshed, we wandered down to the stock yards and Robinia grove to find and log GC8ABBV Rowleys Rendezvous Ramdip.

Another wandering leg up the valley, then a turn into the rock art site. A respectful and careful visit.

Our return was equally as vague, commencing with a leg down along the creek. Still cold!

Lunch was called at a 12.30pm knoll. Long time since I’ve had a 30 minute lunch, another indication of a relaxed day.

Our next stop was T Brayshaw or J Greenfields Hut site.

One more little joy for our new cacher, a call in at GC82WH4 The Stuff of Nightmares #07 Slime!. However, my surprise didn’t go quite as planned – the slime was frozen!

Back to the cars via the other leg of the Rendezvous Creek Walking Track.

Great party, great company from old and new friends. Trust everyone enjoyed it.

Track Maps

Track overview

Track 1

Track 2

Party

16 walkers – Dane A, Rachel B, Nicole B, Shell D (Kiteslayer), Allan D, Roger E (Marmaduke Rothschild), Lucy E, Lisa M, Stephen M, Kanu N, Terrylea R, Llewellyn S, Phillip S, Ian T, Mitchell Z, me (JohnnyBoyACT).