Johnny Boy's Walkabout Blog

Saturday 24 August: Orroral Ridge of Stone from Orroral Valley – M/R. From the Orroral River bridge, climb very steeply up the SE end of the Orroral Ridge of Stone through The Cloisters to The Belfry. A short fixed rope assisted passage is navigated. Walk the ridge track to the car park. Follow the road to the top of the Link Track, then off-track again through tight scrub for one kilometre to find a geocache hidden by a club member in the granite tors. Return south to rejoin the Link Track and follow it down to the valley floor, visiting two recognised indigenous shelter sites. Around 13 km and 500m climb. Map: Corin Dam. Leader: John Evans 0417 436 877 john@johnevans.id.au . Transport: ~$7 per person.

Further Information

Last climbed up here on 11 Jul 17. Last visited the ‘Tunnel of Love’ on 19 Mar 13. Hats off to Lisa for walking today, home for only 1 day after a huge climb of Mt Bartle Frere, the highest hill in Queensland.

Summary

Distance: 13.8km | Climb: 700m | Time: 8.20am – 2.30pm (6hrs 10mins), including 50 mins of breaks | Grading: L/R; H(12)

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

We met at 7.30am opposite my old folks home. A bit chilly at -a few degrees C. Drove to the Orroral Tracking Station car park where, surprisingly, it was warmer than in town. However our route up the nose of the Orroral Ridge of Stone was still in shade.

A quick leg across the Orroral River bridge and along the Link Track to our go bush point. 1.7km in 20mins.

The climb from here to The Belfry was 1.6km across the ground, rising 450vm and taking 1hr 40min. Horrible scrub at the bottom with a lot of Bursaria. It got better as we neared the tors of The Cloisters.

We first passed a large tor.

Then a tall cave.

Then the standing rope assist climb.

Sorry if I overstated the difficulty.

The best thing for me was that rock climber Janice confirmed that this area is indeed The Cloisters (named in the ACT Granite book).

We then picked up the rock climber’s footpad and, aided by a few cairns, soon joined the well defined crest footpad and arrived at The Belfry. A view, a geocache and morning tea.

An easy next leg, along the crest footpad to the collimation tower car park, down Orroral Ridge Rd and right onto the Link Track to our next go bush point (which is misplaced on the track map – it should be on the more southerly track).

The going was fine for most of the leg in.

It was only near our objective that it got very slow and tight. Finally made the ‘Tunnel of Love’.

We walked through it from west to east, surveyed the options for making progress, turned about and walked through it from east to west. Further scrambling got us up higher into the great tors and we found a spot for lunch.

We left lunch to the north and west. It is amazing how different the going was! No scrambling, no big drops, relatively scrub. A doddle. The inward leg of 900m took 38mins. The return leg of 870m took 26mins.

Back down on the Link Track, we headed down. Stopped to look at a recognised aboriginal rock shelter.

And so back to the cars.

Sometime during the day we found and logged the final GZ of geocache GC5YQTG Mr. Mojo Risin.

Good day. Great team!

Track Maps

Track

Track detail of The Cloisters

Profile

Party

8 walkers – Meghan B, Joe C, Thushara De Z, Janice H, Chris P, Lisa Q, Diana T, me.