Johnny Boy's Walkabout Blog

Wednesday 24 June 2026: Joint Clubs Easy-Medium Wednesday Walk – Nil Desperandum and nearby POI * – M/E. We did this hike this time last year. 3 attended as it was wet and snowing 😂. Let’s try again. Starting from Greens picnic area at TNR, we’ll do an anticlockwise loop through Jedbinbilla to Nil Desperandum and surrounds. Anticlockwise gets the main climbs of the day over first. POIs include the Safe Haven rock wallaby enclosure, Nil Desperadum pise cottage (toilet), John Staunton’s Ashbrook site, swimming pool on Hurdle Creek, Camellia grove, eucalyptus distillery, old koala enclosure site, a cool bush footpad to a lookout to relieve tired fire trail feet, Man on a Horse tor, Tidbinbilla River. Geocaches for my (your?) amusement: GC9Y8AR Wallaby Walk, GCB8BGK Ashbrook Ashes. Around 13km and 475vm of climb positions this hike as CBC grade M/E, BBC grade M(8), NPAACT grade 2A. Those doing their first Wednesday Walk, and those who are not members of CBC, BBC or NPA should contact the leader to discuss the level of difficulty of the walk

Summary

From Garmin Connect (recorded on Garmin H1i+ handheld) – Distance: 12.4km | Climb: 520vm | Time: 3:18 moving + 1:53 of stops = 5:11 | Grading: M/E; M(9).

Photographs

View photographs here. There are more photos from a similar recent walk here.

gpx file

Download the gpx file here.

Track Map

Here’s where we went:

Trip Report

I was last in this area on 6 May 26.

The weather was kind today, the Canberra fog clearing as we drove along Paddys River Road.

23 of us set off from Greens picnic area and across the Tidbinbilla bridge.

Always a pleasant leg beside the river from the bridge along to join River Road near the Safe-Haven Gilmores Gate in the fence. A few hundred metres to the unlocked gate at the entrance into Tidbinbilla Nature Reserve from the Tidbinbilla property. Here we started our practice ascent to the 730+m knoll, where there is a nice view back and down to the Tidbinbilla property.

There’s a bit of down to the Safe-Haven Boundary Gate 2 before the long fire trail ascent to SH865. It rises around 150vm.

From there, it’s steeply down, around the corner to the Nil Desperandum restored pise homestead. Smoko was taken.

Our first area POI was the Ashbrook site. A sort whoopsie through the bush to join the vehicle track into the site, as I turned too soon.

Kim H was my favourite because he found geocache GCB8BGK Ashbrook Ashes for me.

Apart from some exotic trees, all that remains are the fireplace stones.

We returned the way we came in, crossed Hurdle Creek in various styles, and visited the swimming pool. Steve took a swim.

Plenty of fungi about. My only pic:

Next across the little bridge to the Camellia Grove. Exit via the second little bridge and across the fire trail to the distillery site.

Back on Hurdle Creek Trail we passed the Old Koala Enclosure site. I was very tempted to line the 23 of us up and do a sweep through the bush, as I’d recently found nothing extant at the site.

3+km of fire trail walking followed, until we hit the NW end of the Nils route footpad. That took us to lunch at the lookout.

Leaving at 1.15pm, we completed the footpad section, wandered down Man on a Horse Trail and visited said site,

We finished the hike with a little spur of the moment wander through a creek system to get us along the predator-proof fence, as I thought there hadn’t been enough M in this E-M trip.

Thanks, friends, trust you enjoyed it.

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

Party

23 walkers.