Sunset over the Illoura Horse Paddocks on the north-west of Curtin

Saturday 14 March: Cbr100Challenge Training – night walking from Duffy to Regatta Point – L/E. The 100km next weekend will see us walking through the night. Here’s an opportunity to get used to the conditions. Leave from my home in Duffy at 7pm, pick up the route on the Cotter Rd and walk via Red Hill. Around 25km and 300m. Should finish around 1am :-) . Map: Canberra. Leader: John Evans 0417 436 877 john@johnevans.id.au . Transport: ~$4, car shuttle required. Late bookings welcome.

2 of us met to walk.

Further Information

With parking at a premium around central Canberra and the lake die to SkyFire, we changed the finish to Narrabundah.

Summary

Distance: 16.5km | Climb: 435m | Time: 6.50pm-10.25pm (3hrs 35mins), with 6 mins of breaks | Grading: M/E; M(9)

Track Maps

Track overview

Track 1

Track 2

Profile

Photographs

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gpx File

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kml File

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Track Notes

With family down from Sydney and a fund raising walk after church tomorrow, the start time was brought forward to 7pm. Parking at a premium in Civic and around Central Basin of the Lake due to Skyfire, so we changed the finish to Narrabundah.

Suburban streets and walkways got us through Duffy, Holder and Weston, over the saddle between Oakey and Reef Hills and down the other side to the top of Lyons. North through the Illoura Horse Paddocks (thank goodness it was still light, as it’s been a few years since I’ve been through here), then around the NW parts of Curtin (a little off-track here!) to join the bike path at the Cotter Rd underpass.

Followed it around the NE flanks of Curtin. Dark now, but pleasant walking in the mild evening.

Over Yarra Glen and plenty of street light as we headed up Carruthers St to Kent St and so to the Red Hill NR entrance opposite the Deakin Telephone Exchange.

Here we needed to get our head torches out and pay a little more attention to the planned track and waypoints we had in our GPSr-s. At 8.30pm the fireworks began. A bit better view of them than my poor old iPhone can record and we enjoyed the 20 minutes show as we climbed towards Red Hill. Plenty of cars starting to leave there as we climbed to the crest.

A few texts exchanged with my “Johnny Boy’s Boys” team mates for next weekend’s Cbr100Challenge walk. They had witnessed the sunset from Mt Gingera after climbing from Corin Dam. Spectacular, they said, due to the smoke from controlled burns on today.

We paused at Davidson trig for supper and a tweet. The best light show was from the streams of cars heading out of central Canberra. A little difficult to walk at night with a head torch whilst engaged in social media conversations, first with @Cbr100Challenge and later with @chifley_alison.

Our planned, modified route (it was NOT pulling the pin, Sean D!) saw us heading to the streets of Red Hill near Hindmarsh Drive and so to our destination.

A pleasant stroll, thanks Cynthia. The balls of my feet and left heel are very sore.

Party

2 walkers – Cynthia Bu, me.