Plumwood (Eucryphia moorei) 300m E of Milo Road in Monga National Park Eucryphia Flora Reserve

Maps: Monga and Araluen 1:25000

Walk Description

This walk was organised By Linda G and led by Peter C as an irregular CBC Tuesday walk:

Tuesday 15 January: Longer Monga M/R partly X. A shady circuit designed with hot weather in mind. From the junction of Milo and Saddle Back roads (GR 620 537), south for 2 and a bit km on Milo and Macquarie forest roads to Milo Trig, to see if the Trig has views (last visited in thick mist). Then steeply down, south, to the top of creek which offers the delights of eucryphia forest - open understorey and deep shade - for about 1 km. Through some scrub to join the River Forest Road which is closed to vehicles at this point, north along the road through ferny country with fairly shady walking, then a short on-road detour to the Mongarlowe River. The climb back up will require about 1/2 hour of scrub before we walk up through some of Monga's largest areas of eucryphia. Around 14 km with main descent and ascent 300m; main difficulty is in the scrubby sections where 500 metres can take half an hour or more. 1 hour 20 minutes from Queanbeyan; gravel roads are 2WD-able. Leader: Linda G. Maps: Monga and Araluen. Transport: $60 per car. Limit: 8.

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Track overview

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Track Notes

We met at 7am in the Spotlight car park in Queanbeyan. Drove via the Kings Highway through Braidwood, to turn onto the River Forest Rd. Drove through (around) Monga and parked at the closure bar a few metres in from the junction of River Forest Rd and Milo Rd.

Leg	From	To	Dist (km)	Time	Comment
1	Junction River Forest and Milo Rds	Go bush at UTM 55H 763661-6053518 (MGA94)	4.0	0:57	Good fire trail
2	Go bush	Morning tea	1.0	0:37	Some faffing around to decide where to take off. The map-marked tracks going W off River Forest Rd don't exist. Thick scrub by the side of the road, but withinn 200m we were in tree ferns and an increasing number of Plumwoods. As the Eucryphia increased, the forest floor cleared
Morning tea				0:25	At the junction of 2 drainage lines. Another strange map thing is that the creek downstream (which we followed on our homeward leg) is not marked on the map
3	Morning tea	Join Milo Rd	1.6	1:00	Climbed 140m through beautiful, dense Plumwood forest and tree ferns. Cool in the mainly shaded forest and absolutely beuatiful
4	Join Milo Rd	Milo Trig	3.1	0:43	A bash up Milo Rd and Macquarie Rd. Spotted an echidna. The track from Macquarie Rd on the edge of the trig reserve up to Milo Trig was a cleared swathe
Lunch				0:40	No view from the trig. We brought a few leeches with us
5	Milo Trig	Leave Milo Rd	1.9	0:28	A bash down the fire trails to another take off point
6	Leave Milo Rd	Arvo tea	2.1	1:20	Again, thick bush at the beginning, but very soon the Plumwood came into view. This area was even more spectacular than the inward leg. More trees and ferns and the pleasure of being able to enjoy looking down into the view and not having to puff and pant. The drainage/creek line from 1000m down to 800m contour was the absolute best of the day
Arvo tea				0:13	A bit of a pause to rest our paws
7	Arvo tea	Join River Forest Rd	0.4	0:18	Looks simple of the map, but this is like a protecting barrier. Very tight bush on both sides of the creek, including lawyer vine and cutting grass. Peter tried to get us to walk down the creek, but we remained dainty. (Note that the creek line we followed down is not marked on the map from just E of our morning tea spot.)
8	Join River Forest Rd	Junction River Forest and Milo Rds	4.6	1:00	Good fire trail. We took a short detour to see the Mongarlowe River

I reckon a lovely, milder-mannered trip, would be to park where we did, walk Milo Rd and do our afternoon leg down through the Eucryphia Flora Reserve and walk back the River Forest Rd. A bit more fire trail, but the best of the forest with that easy down hill leg and most magnificent scenery.

Summary

Distance: 19.6km Climb: 400m. Time: 8.35am - 4.20pm (7hrs 45 mins), with 1hr 15mins of breaks.

Grading: L/R; H(12)

Walk Participants

7 walkers - Peter C, Jenny H, Stewart J, David La P, Mike M, Ian W.