Johnny Boy's Walkabout Blog

Monday 9 September 2024: Take Tim the Yowie Man, Glenn the Kambah historian and a local resident to the source of Village Creek ! – S/R. A quick up and back, around 2 hours.

Summary

From Garmin Connect (recorded on Epix Gen 2) – Distance: 3.44km | Climb: 155vm | Time: 0:58 moving + 0:55 of stops = 1:53 | Grading: S/E-M; E(6).

Photographs

View photographs here.

gpx file

Download the gpx file here.

Track Map

Here’s where we went.

 

Trip Report

Tim the Yowie Man is the greatest promoter of Canberra and the region. He, along with Glenn Schwinghamer, local Kambah historian, has been goading me to find the source of Village Creek (which flows underground through the suburb of Kambah) for weeks. It all started with this.

Intrigued, I investigated the longest arm of Village Creek on 26 Aug 24 (photos here). TYM wasn’t happy that the creek could pass under the Tuggeranong Parkway or flow uphill on its way to empty into Lake Tuggeranong. So another arm was investigated on 1 Sep 24 (photos here). This arm didn’t suffer the above anomalies.

Today, TYM, Glenn and a great walking buddy Sandra, joined me for a look-see. A bit smarter on the third visit, the planned route was to use fire trail and footpad to scale halfway up the mighty flank of Mt Taylor, contour across the western viewing platform footpad we followed on 17 Aug 24 (photos here) and drop into the top of the creek.

I haven’t laughed so much in many months. A new local name on our route which I named ‘TYM bluff’ might just as well be called  ‘TYMM banter’. Glenn is a mighty fine banter giver and taker too.

Away at 9.10am. Footpad, fire trail and more footpad got us up to the western flank of Mt Taylor.

Some temporary housing a little further along.

Not de rigueur these days and it’s great to see TNR on its kids holiday programs making humpies out of recycled, not the local bush, material.

We stopped at the newly christened ‘TYM bluff’. Glenn quizzed TYM on the names of the distant hills and he passed very well for a north-sider.

Some twisting and turning to get ourselves into the top of Village Creek.

Through the 50m above point where I last took a photo, then down to the map-marked source of Village Creek. Much convincing required of my companions.

Perhaps this photo should be produced in sepia, as all grand old explorer shots are.

Downhill is a much more comfortable exploring direction.

The Bursaria is just as prickly.

We crossed the Power Line Track, not able to squeeze through the culvert of this first ‘bridge’ over Village Creek.

Some interesting geology in the next section of the creek.

Back at the carpark, where Village Creek is underground for 20m or so, we did a quick follow down to where this wild, untamed creek is sadly encased in concrete.

It turns south on its way to the sea Lake Tuggeranong, flowing under Kambah.

Thanks folks. What a cac(kle)!

Party

4 walkers – Glenn S, Sandra T, TYM, me.

AllTrails

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

Johnny Boy’s Walkabout Blog FaceBook Page

I’ve started up a FaceBook page. Each trip report posts to it. It’s another way to get some info to get out and breathe a bit of fresh air. Why not pop over and Follow the page, or give a post a Like.

Additional Trip Reports

As I age, I’m doing a few more simple hikes. I don’t always produce a full trip report. If you’re interested, you can find details of them on the Completed Walks tab. There you can access the trip’s map segment, download a gpx file, see the distance, climb and grading, and link through to the photo album. Additional metrics are available by looking at the start waypoint on the map segment – moving time, stopped time, total time.