Johnny Boy's Walkabout Blog

Tuesday 8 February 2022: Square Rock and Smokers Trail – M/E. From Corin Hub, walk the Square Rock Track, detouring in to the Orroral Valley Lookout. Take in the views from Square Rock. Return via the Smokers Trail Link Track and Smokers Trail.

Summary

Distance: 15.3km | Climb: 466m | Time: Starting 8.15am 3hrs 40mins moving time, plus 3mins of breaks | Grading: M/E; E(7).

Photographs

Photographs are available here.

gpx File

Download the gpx file recorded via AllTrails here (in AllTrails, activate …, Download Route, Select a file format, OK).

Track Notes

AllTrails trip report.

My companion had to withdraw at the last moment, but as I was last here on 3 Aug 19, it deserved another walk.

A cool and overcast morning. I think the car registered 10°C on the trip up. A few roos and wallabies on the road, particularly around the Corin Recreation Area. With the grass so tall on the road verges, it’s best to travel at a moderate pace with a foot hovering over the bake.

New signage and a boot scrubber at the start of the track.

A couple of raised walkways take the track across drainage lines.

Some dips through other water courses.

It’s a very pleasant walk.

Some nice stone steps in places.

The track comes to Smokers Flat, a nice frost hollow. The area is one of the many headwaters of Booroomba Creek which runs down into the Orroral Valley (not the Booroomba Creek near Booroomba Rocks).

The track crosses the Flat.

Passing the junction with the Link Track over to Smokers Trail, the Square Rock Track continues through timbered country with plenty of regrowth either side. There is a side track to the Orroral Valley Lookout and although the views aren’t great, it’s worth the 1km round trip.

Back on the Square Rock Track, a female Gang Gang sat still enough for me to snap it with my phone.

Quite a few wild flowers still about at this higher altitude of around 1400m.

Square Rock is soon reached, with its ‘Warning Cliffs Ahead’. Nice views to the SW to the Brindabellas, before climbing the short ladder.

Across a little crack, the little one on the left, not the other.

Always magic views, directly over Corin Road to High Range and further round to the right.

You can get under the viewing rocks.

On the way back, a male Gang Gang. The Gang-gang Cockatoo ( Callocephalon fimbriatum) was adopted as the faunal emblem for the ACT on 27 February 1997. Canberra is the only city in Australia where these distinctive ash-grey cockatoos live.

Back at the Link Trail junction I took a right. A track less travelled, but easy to follow.

More wild flowers.

The Link Track roughly parallels the drainage line coming out from Smokers Flat, then crosses it.

It intersects with Smokers Trail.

Smokers Trail is a management trail (passed a vehicle coming down it), but it still provides some reasonable walking and, of course, the opportunity for a bit of a round trip rather than there and back.

It parallels another arm of the headwaters of Booroomba Creek for a while, crossing it twice via culverts.

Smokers Trail swings from East to North and comes out at the old Smokers Trail car park.

It heads down towards Corin Road through the old Gibraltar Creek Pine Forest.

Turn left at the Smokers Trail/South Smokers Trail intersection.

And so back to Corin Hub.

A nice little trip.

Track Map

The best track map is available via AllTrails, where you can pan and zoom. But here it is (recorded on my GPSr) laid out on TopoView 2006 Corin Dam map via OziExplorer.

Party

Just moi.