Johnny Boy's Walkabout Blog

Saturday 23 July 2022: Kinlyside and Percival Hill Nature Reserves * – M/M,ptX. Canberra Nature Park – a breath of fresh air for busy walkers. There are 39 Nature Reserves in the Canberra Nature Park. How many can we walk in? These are numbers 9 and 10. I haven’t walked in Kinlyside before.
Ever heard of Kinlyside Nature Reserve? Do you know where it is? This is a unique opportunity to visit this normally closed area. With permission from the landowner who manages the conservation of this rural lease, walk north-east from near Hall paralleling Halls Creek. We cross recovering grazing land and climb to a ridge of Yellow Box–Blakely’s Red Gum grassy woodland that bounds the west side of suburban Casey. Return via a loop. Around 10km and 200vm climb. Drive to Nicholls for a quick up, down and around of Percival Hill. Around 3km and 100vm climb.

Summary

W1, Kinlyside – Distance: 8.5km | Climb: 170m | Time: 2hrs 45mins moving + 15mins of stops | 

W2, Percival Hill – Distance: 3.0km | Climb: 80m | Time: 1hr |

Combined – Distance: 11.5km | Climb: 250m | Time: 3hrs 45mins moving + 15mins of stops | Grading: M/M,ptX; E(7).

Photographs

Photographs are available here, including scans of old maps kindly provided by Roger.

gpx File

The gpx file is available here.

Track Notes

I was last in Kinlyside doing a short recce a month ago, when the lessee kindly drove me around! Last on Percival Hill on 19 Oct 13.

The weather was overcast to start, then clearing to high level cloud and sunny breaks. 7-20°C, average 12.1°C.

Walk 1 – Kinlyside

Note that Kinlyside Nature Reserve is managed as a private lease and you need the landowner’s permission to walk there.

11 of us gathered at the start point and after my version of Acknowledgement of Country, thanks to the landowner and a walk briefing, we headed off on a vehicle track running NE. 

Through the gate and a surprise is a substantial boat, having seen better days, on a nearby dam.

The track handrails Halls Creek. A particularly interesting tree.

The route gives views up onto the Baldy trig – One Tree Hill ridge, with the Canberra Centenary Trail along its flank. We continued north until we hit the edge of Taylor. Note Taylor is not shown in the map segment below. The map was downloaded as a geo-referenced pdf from the SIX etopo site and is the latest officially available 8727-4S HALL 1:25000 topographic map, 2017 edition. (It was then calibrated for use in OziExplorer.)

It was nice to leave the track and U-turn up through the grasses onto the ridge along the suburban edge.

What followed was a very pleasant stroll SW-ish along the ridge with its knolls and dips.

A morning tea stop.

Near Clarrie Hermes Drive, we were entertained by two cockatoos emerging from a wonderful hollow high up in a tree.

Back at our cars, we drove to Linwall Place Nicholls.

Walk 2 – Percival Hill

This was a quick up, around and down to tick off this Nature Reserve. Not that exciting, although views over the nearby suburbs and to distant hills. We walked up the main track to the trig.

My PeakFinder app gave us some information on the hills we could see.

We headed down via the SW side, me making a halfhearted look for an old site of interest. Circling round to return to the NE, we managed a route between the uninteresting track and uninteresting suburban edge. Disturbed the locals.

Canberra Nature Park Nature Reserves #9 and #10, tick, tick.

Track Map

Here’s where we went, displayed on an e-topo geo-referenced PDF map downloaded from SIX and calibrated for use in OziExplorer.

See the track on AllTrails where you can pan and zoom.

Party

11 walkers – Elizabeth, Jane, Jenny and Sal, Judy, Lucy, Nathan, Neil (visiting from New Zealand), Roger, Teresa, me.