Johnny Boy's Walkabout Blog

Saturday 26 March: Mt Ginini, Little Ginini & Mt Gingera. From Ginini car park on Mount Franklin Road a short walk to Mt Ginini then off track to Little Ginini. Next partly off track to Pryor’s Hut for morning tea. We continue from there, partly on fire trail and partly on footpad, to Mt Gingera. After enjoying lunch with great views we will return, off track, to Pryor’s Hut and then back along the fire trail to our cars.

Summary

Distance: 15.5km | Climb: 703m | Time: 5hrs 41mins moving time, plus 1hr 22mins of breaks | Grading: L/M; M(11).

Photographs

Photographs are available here. And photos from 20 March here.

gpx File

Download the gpx file with waypoints recorded via my Garmin Oregon 650 GPSr and track recorded via AllTrails here. 

Track Notes

AllTrails trip report.

A trip with wonderful walking on the Brindabella hills, but first some confessions.

In Matthew 12:31-32, Jesus said “Therefore I say to you, any sin and blasphemy shall be forgiven men, but blasphemy against the Spirit shall not be forgiven.” No blasphemy from me today, but plenty of sins. Thank goodness my leader and fellow walkers were gracious and forgiving.

#1 – The old ski run and fire trail from the Ginini car park to the air navigation facility on Mt Ginini rise 100vm over 700m, so of course I was immediately puffing. I committed the (to me) unforgivable sin by failing to call out before the walker in front of me disappeared into the fog and I lost contact with the rest of the party. Arriving at the top, no one was in sight, so I set off down the old ski run at the top of Harrys Spur. I got around 200m along the feint footpad and still no one in sight, so I doubled back. Found the others back up at Mt Ginini, they having circumnavigated the fence of the infrastructure for a bit of a look-see.

#2 – I am just too slow going uphill and off-track. I held up the party on numerous occasions when I had to stop for a breather.

#3 – Although I checked with our leader on the drive in and he permitted me to do a little geocaching, this again is unfair and holds up the party.

#4 – With the medication I’m on causing advancing peripheral nephropathy in my feet, I’m getting less feeling down there. So I took a full-blown tumble at one point. Nothing hurt but my pride.

Lessons learnt – don’t separate from the party; don’t book on trips I can’t handle; don’t geocache on other leaders’ walks. ‘Nuff old man grumbles said.

It took 1hr 15mins to drive up from Weston Creek. The Mt Franklin Road is in very poor condition and I was very glad to be driven. My town car would have taken a lot longer, if it had survived the pot holes and stony sections. Here’s a photo of about the only decent bit.

Overcast and misty at the Ginini car park.

After my debacle, we headed down the Harrys Spur track and took a left to the south where it turns down to the west. The location is defined by the brumby yard site.

A little further on we spotted a couple of border markers, here’s Harry Mouat’s 19 Mile marker, from where he started surveying at Mt Coree.

Some patches of clear going and a bit of wind fall timber as we continued down the south Ginini spur to hit the Mt Franklin Road near Stockyard Gap and morning tea.

After a bit on the fire trail, we headed up the north side of Little Ginini Mountain. 170vm climb over 820m across the ground, but my pace forced the party to take 43mins for this leg. It was beautiful country though – see top pic.

Whilst others clambered around the boulders at the top, I found border marker M57. It’s a beauty, with a ‘box’ of stones protecting the border corner at the centre of the lockspit arms. You can feel the top of the 1inch diameter galvanised iron pipe that was driven into the ground by Harry around 110 years ago.

Thankfully, a quick find and log of geocache GC93J18 Little Ginini nearby.

I will have a quick whinge about some location placements on AllTrails’ OpenStreetMaps. Here’s a snip of Little Ginini Mountain.

The top is marked at 1725m; obviously the top is just by the northern red dot (my border marker M57 photo location) at 1740+m.

In a hurry not to hold the party up, I failed to find geocache GC93QF1 Glorious Ginini near border marker O57. Sigh – will have to go back some time.

The lovely walking continued to around the 1700m contour.

We paused at the nose where the SE spur starts to drop away down to Pryors Hut.

Down by Pryors Hut we ran into an NPA ACT work party. It was great to have a chat with Rupert B (who took me on fabulous trips in Tasmania yonks ago), Brian S (who often walks with the ‘coffee club boys’), Philip G and Martin C. I didn’t know the others.

Our party had a break.

This week I determined the location of the National Botanic Gardens Alpine Annex as being adjacent to Pryors Hut, overplanted by the Scotts Pine arboretum when the alpine annex was abandoned. So I had a quick wander through the area to see if I could spy anything. No joy.

We walked on south along the Mt Franklin Road to the Mt Gingera Walk turnoff. A quick find of geocache GC9NEM7 Weird Weir XXXVIII – Gingera, another great Tankengine hide including his telltale tether.

Just shy of the signposted right hand bend in the track, I ducked off into the bush for a little more geocaching – no joy. I asked another party member to tell our leader what I was doing and I’d meet them at the top but, like any good leader, Phillip returned to pick me up and walk behind me as I puffed to the top. We rejoined the party and had lunch.

No photos today, but some from last Saturday here. A quick find of GC9NEM9 Glorious Gingera near the guyed pole and refurbished border marker X57.

We then headed north along the Gingera ridge, via the real Mt Gingera high point. Most of the snow gums fire damaged.

The NW nose of the ridge near SH1847 has a border marker R57.

The next marker to the north is 700m away, down near Pryors Hut. So surveyor Mouat was able to see between those two points (actually he was surveying south from Mt Coree, so measured the bearing and distance from Q57 up to R57).

We took in the view to much of the morning’s walking before we walked down to Pryors Hut.

All that remained was to walk back out the Mt Franklin Road to the cars, around 5km. We steamed past the Stockyard Spur turnoff and, with me trailing the pack, didn’t even make an attempt at the nearby GC9NEM0 Stockyard Stops.

Track Maps

 

Party

12 walkers led by Phillip S. A reenactment of the first ever trip he led for CBC on 30 Apr 11.