3 July 2012 Mt Herlt Granite Slabs

View over Rendezvous Creek from the Mt Herlt granite slabs

Map: Rendezvous Creek 1:25000

Getting There

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

Tuesday 3 July - Mt Herlt granite slabs - L/R,ptX. Walk to Rendezvous Creek from the Nursery Swamp car park. Climb through thick regrowth to the massive Mt Herlt granite slabs on the side of the Mavis ridge. Around 15km and 800m climb. Map: Rendezvous Creek. Leader: John Evans - jevans@pcug.org.au, 0417 436 877. Transport: ~$10 per person.

8 of us drove to the Nursery Swamp car park.

Further Information

Mt Herlt is the CBC local name for the 1620+m high knoll on the Middle Creek/Creamy Flats Creek and Rendezvous Creek divide. Mt Mavis is the CBC local name for SH1711 and the entire ridge from Pheasant Creek to Rock Flats is known as the Mavis Ridge.

Photographs

You can access all photographs here.

Walk

Track maps: thumbnails are active - click for a larger picture
Track overview	Track 1	Track 2

Blue skies with few fluffs of cloud all day. Cool. Perfect! Scrub blood and granite adrenalin galore.

5.3km in 1hr 33mins to the fireplace on the far side of Rendezvous Creek. A little change in that we crossed Nursery Creek via the bridge, then struck off to the blue paint at the start of the footpad to Rendezvous Creek at a point that Rob H had told me about a couple of years ago. Certainly a drier option. As usual, lost the track a couple of times going in.

Didn't stop at the fireplace, but continued down the side of the creek via the old track to the next flats. Morning tea on the edge of the flats, with a great view up to Mt Herlt and Mt Mavis.

These are local CBC names not found on the map. Mt Herlt is named after Tony Herlt, a tiger walker in the 1970s who led a lot of day trips in Namadgi. It is probably best known for the huge granite rock face on its northern side. It's SH1612 on the 1st edition Rendezvous Creek 8626-1S 1:25000 map and the feature above the 1600m contour on the 2nd edition map. Mt Mavis is SH1711 on the Rendezvous Creek 8626-1S 1:25000 map. Mt Mavis was named after Gary Medaris's mother. Gary was a prominent and enthusiastic leader in his very early twenties in 1973.

A 2.1km leg from morning tea to lunch, climbing from 1050m to 1500m. But it took 1hr 50mins. Reasonable going for the first bit, a bit scrubby. Started to get into the granite. A bit more intense from the 1300m contour to the top at 1500m, both scrub and climb. The last approach to the lunch spot involved a scramble up a granite slab with a fair fall if we'd slipped. A huge view from the top of the slab over Rendezvous Creek.

For the homeward leg we headed back down more to the N. The first 100m drop in height was quite reasonable - no slabs - but a lot of broken granite and tors as we descended further. A magnificent tor at the 1400m contour.

Eventually down, a pause at the fireplace, then back up the footpad. We visited a site on the way out and took the footpad from it on the N side of Nursery Creek to regain the walking track.

Not a bad day with a great luncheon view. It turned out that Linda's pack wasn't full of high-risk walk emergency gear, but a huge and yummy orange cake. Thanks for you company Cynthia B and Chris R, Cynthia C, Eric G, Ian W, Linda G and Peter C.

Distance: 16.9km Climb: 850m. Time: 8.25am - 4.05pm (7hrs 40mins), with 40mins of stops.
Grading: L/R,ptX; H(13)

KMZ file for Google Earth/Maps: Mt Herlt Granite Slabs

Back to Walks Index

This page last updated 30Aug22