11 October 2011 A search for Howells weir and climb to Blundells Hill

Map: Cotter Dam 1:25000

Getting There

This walk was organised and led by me as an irregular CBC Tuesday walk:

Tuesday 11 October - A search for Howells weir and climb to Blundells Hill - M/M,ptX. Drive in Warks Rd to park at Yellow Rabbit Rd. Walk in beside Lees Creek to search for Howells weir. Then follow old forestry trails to climb to Blundells Hill. Return through the top of the old Uriarra Pine Forest area. Around 11km and 450m climb. Map: Cotter Dam. Leader: John Evans - jevans@pcug.org.au, (h) 6288 7235. Transport: ~$8 per person.

7 of us drove in 2 cars via Uriarra Crossing, Brindabella Road and Warks Road to the intersection with Yellow Rabbit Road.

Further Information

A short walk so I can be home to set up for the evening.

Photographs

You can access all photographs here.

Walk

Track map: thumbnail is active - click for a larger picture

Track

We strolled in along Warks Road to the Lees Creek camp site and had a poke around there.

Then further along Warks Road to cross Lees Creek near where I thought Howells weir was. A couple of us had water-wading shoes, which turned out to be unnecessary. A few metres up the fire trail we turned down through mild blackberries to the feeder creek. We headed upstream, with Stephen checking out downstream. His shout soon had us turn about - he'd found it. Excellent, the last of the Brindabella weirs. (They're listed here.)

Back to the fire trail for morning tea, then along Warks Road, calling in at Lees Creek weir. Very pretty with more water coming over it.

There are new steel fire trail signposts through the area, installed since my last visit on 7 Jun 11 and 21 May 11. The fire trail I thought I wanted, heading N-ish on the E side of Blundells Creek and taking off before reaching the gate and intersection with Blundells Creek Road, was called something (Upper/Lower/South?) Champagne Rd - just my thing. The fire trail headed straight up the spur, obviously not the wiggling one I wanted. Interestingly, the fire trail is not marked on the 2nd edn Cotter Dam 1:25000 topo map, only the top section is marked on the 1st edn map, but it was marked on the OZtopo V3 maps in my GPS! Anyway, it went the way we wanted. Nice flowers on the way up.

Met station and cairn at Blundells Hill were not very exciting.

We wandered along the ridge under the power lines for a while, not bad views either side. Then down into the old Uriarra Pine Forest area. Lunch in the sun on the edge of the fire trail, with views to the W side of the Tidbinbilla Range.

More fire trail and one little section down through the blackberries and regrowth to get onto a lower fire trail.

Woot, woot - the last Brindabella weir found. And some not bad scenery, Spring flowers and bird life. (I'd hate to do the trip in 35°C in mid February!)

Many thanks for your company Mike B, Chris F, Margaret G, Stephen M, Julia T and Prue W.

Distance: 14.3km Climb: 400m. Time: 8.20am - 1.10pm (4hrs 50mins), with 35mins of stops.
Grading: M/E-M,ptX; M(9)

KMZ file for Google Earth/Maps: Howells Weir and Blundells Hill

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This page last updated 28Aug22