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

Tuesday 18 November- 80r cliff above Coree Creek - M/M-R/,X. From Pabral Rd ascend an unmarked fire trail to Mt Blundell. From further north on Blue Range Rd drop off to visit an adit and pits. Return to the ridge then drop off again to a magnificent 80r cliff which towers over Coree Creek. Somehow scramble down (off to one side!) to Coree Creek and splash back. If time and inclination allow, splash further down to the weir on Condor Creek. Around 10km and 550m total climb. Route not fully known to leader. Map: Cotter Dam 1:25000. Limit of 8. Leader: John Evans – jevans@pcug.org.au, (h) 6288 7235. Transport: ~$7. Further details at http://jevans.pcug.org.au.

7 of us met and drove via Uriarra Rd, Brindabella Rd, Curries Rd and Pabral Rd to the tanker turnaround on the edge of the native forest.

Hi John I had wondered around and under the 80r some years ago before the fires. It was an attractive area for a rugged walk, something like around Cow Flat Creek. There are some other good outcrops either side of that section of Coree Creek that are well worth a visit. The creek also used to be a Shangri-la of tree ferns and clean water, especially just below the Devils Peak cliffy bit. Sorry I can't come on the walk this time though. All of the rocks are of volcanic origin and formed by deposition and re-fusion of ash falls. Regards Chris (info from Chris L).

This is an approved, sponsored CBC walk.

A view of the destination, looking up from Coree Creek is at pic 4 and across from further away at pic 5.

Information on the area can be searched at the DIGS database, NSW Dept of Primary Industries, Minerals, Geological Survey of NSW, http://digsopen.minerals.nsw.gov.au/, Search DIGS, search with Location = Canberra, open report Metallogenic (R00050805), preview Text p92-111 sheets 81-100 and go to sheet 90. It gives a GR for the Mt Blundell site, but on an old 1:25000 ACT map in ANG (Australian National Grid).

Alex P, a very helpful and knowledgeable contact in ACTPLA is 'da man' who readily provided:

John, All is revealed. I got out an old Army 1:50,000 map and couldn’t make any sense of the GR’s. Then the penny dropped; the GR given is from an older Army map series, that grid being in YARDS and the Northings origin is based on 34 degrees south latitude, being 800,000 yards. In this instance, the quickest way to convert from ANG (Australian National Grid) to MGA would be by block shifts. Looking at the COTTER map, I see your site is a few hundred metres west of Blue Range Rd, just inside the ACT. For this particular area, try the following: The “full” co-ordinates for the GR are E185900yd, N641200yd. The co-ords for the NW corner of the COTTER sheet are E176029yd, N645815yd (nearest yard, by calculation) and E659212m, N6097829m (nearest metre MGA, by calculation) The block shift for the NW corner of the COTTER (1:50K) and COTTER DAM (1:25K) sheets is +E498,250m and +N5,507,300m (rounded to nearest 10m) Take the yard values and convert them to metres by multiplying each by 0.9144, so 185900yd becomes 169987m and 641200yd becomes 586313m Adding the block shift values above, your site has MGA co-ords of E 668,237m and N 6,093,613m. Fortunately, I was able to check this by plotting both positions on the appropriate maps: they check out against surrounding detail on both maps. The best way to reference your sites (providing you have clear sky) is to hold a hand-held GPS unit over the site for about 2 minutes. That should give you co-ords based on WGS84 (which is about 1 metre different to MGA) to an accuracy of about ±5 metres. Hope this helps, Alex.

All the above leads to an additional location from the previous visit that may be a shaft - we'll see.

Walk

We mogul-ed down the blocked off fire trail, crossed Coree Creek and started up the other side. Somewhere up the 500m climb Madeleine told us that this little track is called the 'unending fire trail'. Jenny pointed out Diggers Speedwell (Derwentia perfoliata) to me - another easy one to remember, as it looks like hardenbergia flowers on juvenile gum leaves! But we eventually crested Mt Blundell and had a little sit on the log across the track. We pushed on to the intersection with Blue Range Road.

From here we headed bush, and most pleasant it was as soon as we'd left the fire trail. Arriving at the GR I had for the possible shaft site, we had a (disorganised - thanks to me) scout around, finding promising rocks (Gossan?), many orchids (see pic 1) and no shaft. So we curved across and down to the adit, crossing into NSW. With torch alight, most of us headed in across the pool inside the entrance (see pic 2) and in the 35 metres to the end. No other inhabitants (Eric had regaled us with stories of owls flapping startlingly out of caves). About turn and out to the sunlight for a sit on the mullock heap for morning tea. Views to Mt Coree.

The next leg took us back up to Blue Range Road and we retraced our steps to a point around 300m N of Mt Blundell. Here we dropped off the side again, heading via the obvious saddle towards the top of the 80r (= 80m relative height) cliff. A little steep in places (100m drop over 250m) and a bit vegetatively close! But eventually we broke out onto the top of the cliff and worked our way S to an open point that provided quite huge views over Coree Creek to the granite on the other side (see pic 3). An excellent place for lunch, with views from Blundells Flat via Mt Coree to Devils Peak.

Steep and close after lunch, as we dropped 250m over 500m down to Coree Creek. Scree with scattered poison ivy in places - I find a slide down the former and a brief brush with the latter just the thing to keep me awake. Blanket bush abounded.

At last we hit Coree Creek and turned in the direction the water was flowing. No need for a change of footwear, as there was certainly less water than our previous trip up the creek on 23 Sep 08. Secateurs were handy when we had to tunnel through a completely overgrown part of the creek. Passed through the cascades and lower waterfall and pool, disturbing water dragons.

At the fire trail we decided to leave the weir on Condor Creek for another day, as I thought it useful to get the sedan out before the rain started.

A nice little short day wander, but quite good views and the adit was of interest to those who hadn't visited it before. Probably the granite on the other side of Coree Creek is worth a similar visit, for views across to where we were today. Finished by 2.30pm and home by 3.30pm - a first for Tuesday walks.

Thanks for your company Eric P, Henry H, Jenny H, John H, Lorraine T and Madeleine H.

Distance: 8.2km  Climb: 650m.  Time: 8.25am - 2.25pm (6hrs), with 45mins of stops.
Grading: M/M-R/X; M(10)

KMZ file for Google Earth/Maps: 80r Cliff above Coree Creek