This walk was organised and led by Stan M (well, George P did the hard yards in the end) as a CBC Thursday evening walk:

(Thursday evening, 18 January: Mulligan’s Flat East – S/E Meet 6.30 in the main Mulligan’s Flat car park. Go down Gundaroo Road (off Horse Park Rd) and follow the signs to the car park. Nice open bushland. No need to book. Map: n/a Leader: Stan M. Transport: drive yourself).

I've never been here before, so the perfect opportunity to get there. However, I did discover why I'm such a poor navigator - it helps to read the directions! I left Weston Creek at 5.30pm and arrived at the start point at nearly 6.40pm, having delayed my walking companions. Thinking Gundaroo Road was Gundaroo Drive and being a southerner, I first established that the start point was not at the Goorooyaroo car park, or in Forde or Harrison. A last desperate attempt got me to the start. Stan M (and the rest of the party) had generously waited for me, he signed me on, then handed over to George P, as Stan the man had injured himself at tennis the previous day.

9 of us set of at 6.40pm, across the gate at the car park, up the track along the ridge which paralleled the Gundaroo Road. A light shower was very pleasant, with glowering thunder storms to be seen in the S over Canberra. Nice views to the NW (see pic 1).

We hit the ACT-NSW border and turned SE to follow the fence-line for a while, then continued SE onto the flats as the border turned more E. The area contains a number of dams and contours to feed them and obviously must have been a grazing area in the past.

We followed a service area for an underground telephone cable for a while, a stately flowering gum catching my eye (see pic 2). At this point we were around 1.5km SW of a property named Frankford, where my brother-in-law used to live in the 1970s (commuting to Canberra to work).

A few hundred metres S we hit a service road which took us generally W back towards the car park. At around 8.15pm and 600m short of the cars, we came to an information display (see pic 3). Unfortunately the pamphlets for the bird watching walk and the Mulligans Flat walk had run out - but, no worries, you'll find them all here (if only I'd looked before I went!). Another shower was welcome over the last minutes to the cars.

Alan C, a Tuesday walks mate, generously shared two homing devices.

An excellent little stroll. Now knowing how to get there and the extent of the area (see pic 3), I think I'll return. Thanks, walking companions, and George P for leading us and Stan M for organising it.

Interesting that, this time last year on the anniversary of the 2003 firestorms, it was unseasonably damp, too.

Distance: 9.0km  Climb: 100m.  Time: 6.40-8.20pm (call it 1.75hrs).