This walk was a CBC walk led by Jeff B:
(' Near Honeysuckle Creek, a very short walk along a ridge in and out of massive granite boulders with caves, tunnels, crevasses and balconies. Much scrambling, but I don't plan on anything too hard. We explore some areas missed in the trip last February. The walk is all over 1250m altitude, and should therefore be somewhat cooler than Canberra. Map: Corin Dam 1:25000 Leader: Jeff B Transport: ~$10 Limit: 12 '). 2 cars picked up a total of 6 walkers and we met at Tharwa at 7.30am. Drive to Honeysuckle Creek camping ground, then up the fire trail to the NMC105 Honeysuckle Creek collimation tower site. Despite my recent assessment, a 2WD Magna made it up fine. |
Canberra's forecast was for 38°C, so we wanted to finish our New Year's Eve wander by midday. We were walking by 8am, first heading down south around the base of Tower Rocks. Nice and cool in the shade. Several rock climbers' belay points were visible and I took my ACT Granite book to try to identify some of the climbs. Lovely views down into the still green Orroral Valley and across to the SW wall of the Orroral Valley and beyond from most of the vantage points.
We headed up to the north west and soon joined a well trodden foot pad which took us NNW along the ridge. After 1km and at 8.55am we stopped for a 5 minute breather at a groovy balanced rock, the temperature heading towards 30°C.
9.30am saw us at the Trojan Wall, with fantastic views back to Legoland on the side of the ridge and across the Orroral Valley to features both known and trod and known but not yet trod. Split Rock at Cotter Rocks was prominent.
A little distance to the north, Sentinel Rocks towered and called us to explore around their base. 9.55am saw us at the furthest extent of our little trip, under the massive orange striped faces.
We retraced our steps for 1km, then veered south into the cave at Legoland for morning tea, disappearing from view to the GPS satellites. A cool 22°C in the cave, with a beautiful breeze blowing in the shade. Massive boulders in the ceiling which, no doubt, will fall in a few tens of thousands of years. We enjoyed a 40 minute break and were joined by 2 more walkers towards the end.
Then to the SE corner of the cave and up a crawl to the top, several more rock hops and out onto the top of Legoland with uninterrupted views to the west. A tremendous view across to the rock face of Mt Namadgi (where I'll be on Tuesday morning).
With the temperature approaching 33°C, we wandered back along the footpad to the cars, reaching them at 11.15am.
An excellent preparation for New Year's Eve. An area I'd looked up to from the Orroral Valley floor many times (probably misnaming Trojan Wall as Legoland), but never visited. This would be a good place to take church friends.
Distance: 3.6km Climb: <100m (but a little scrambling). Time: 8.00am - 11.15pm (call it 3¼ hours) with 60 minutes of breaks.
