Johnny Boy's Walkabout Blog

Saturday 31 August: ‘Mt Evans’ – M/R,ptX. Last century Outward Bound named a knoll north of Mt Tennent ‘Mt Evans’, so I’ve been told. Wanna visit this magnificent 1008m scrubby knoll? From the Namadgi Visitors Centre, take the AAWT to the northern end of Bushfold Flats. Visit several European settler sites including Dunns’ 1910 hut site. Off-track to ‘Mt Evans’ followed by a 350vm plunge through the bush to the Park boundary. Visit the Tennent homestead site on the return to the cars. Around 14km and 700m climb. Map: Williamsdale. Leader: John Evans 0417 436 877 john@johnevans.id.au . Transport: ~$3.

Further Information

I last attempted this walk on 16 Jun 18, but one of the party was crook and I had to take them back.

Summary

Distance: 14.7km | Climb: 750m | Time: 7.55am – 2.25pm (6hrs 30mins), including 40 mins of breaks | Grading: L/M-R,ptX; 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

Walking from the Namadgi Visitors Centre at 7.55am. A stroll up to the T-intersection of the AAWT with the Mt Tennent link trail. 4.7km in 1hr 30mins, including a quick break at Cypress Pine Lookout.

We then continued NW and SW down the AAWT to the northern end of Bushfold Flats. Very dry along the side of the track.

Down at the northern end of Bushfold Flats we first visited Duncan McKeahnie’s 1884 Hut site.

Then back to the gate and uphill to N Bushfold Shearing shed site – Read’s 1 stand shed.

Then to the NW to visit Russell and Muriel Read’s 1957 Hut site (sadly just a pile of corrugated iron since the 2003 bushfires), find a geocache and have morning tea.

The last site in this area was Martin McMahons post 1902 hut site.

I’ve been here a few times before but today we were fortunate enough to unearth a bottle.

Anyone have any idea as to how it can be identified by the markings on the base? We left it at the site; hope no one takes it or busts it.

Our final visit in this area was further to the northern end of the Flats and through a bit of wattle scrub to Dunns’ hut c1910 site at Dunns Flat.

Here Roger really came into his own (he’d already shared some information about the previous sites) and told us lots about this site and its history.

We next headed NNE through a broad saddle and light scrub.

Our objective was the map-marked SH1008. Some years ago a friend told me that he did Outward Bound in the 1970s and one of the waypoints on a trip was this “Mt Evans”. So definitely not named after me, but it had to be ‘conquered’.

We arrived at said location at 11.45am. Have you seen Crocodile Dundee, #2 I think? Dundee disposes of a baddie in a New York railway station and two Japanese tourist are there to photograph one of them in triumphant pose. It takes my fancy and was appropriate (at least to me) to claim ‘Mt Evans’. Lunch beside the junior sized site.

Our exit was a 350vm drop down the edge of NNP to the Tennent Homestead site. Not much said about this as it contains asbestos and is well fenced off.

We also paid a visit to the nearby Tennent woolshed site.

The last leg I’d remembered as very scrubby on the NNP side of the fence, so first went high. Justin took the lead after a while and guided us down to the power line service track.

I’m sorry – we cut the corner a little when rejoining the Mt Tennent Walking Track.

Back down in the NVC paddock, we visited the new scar tree, the Mouat Tree and Gisgenby in a Box display.

Good trip, great company.

Track Maps

Track

Profile

Party

7 walkers – Shell D, Thushara De Z, Roger H, Lisa Q, Justin S, Judy Z, me.