This walk was organised and led by Rob H as a CBC walk:

Saturday 6 June: Ridge east Nursery Swamp – M/R/X. Start and finish at Orroral camp ground. Map: Rendezvous Creek 1:25,000. Leader: Rob H. Transport: ~48 km each way, $35 per car, ~$9–$12 per person.

13 of us met and drove via Tharwa and the Boboyan Road to the Nursery Swamp car park.

Further Information

Max (who we met during the day) and I finally remembered that we'd been along this ridge on 22 Aug 06.

Walk track

The day cleared from pea soup fog in Canberra to a blue-sky winter's day by the time we arrived at the Nursery Swamp car park. A pleasant stroll up the Nursery Swamp Walking Trail to the saddle where we did a left turn and headed up the ridge to SH1238, the first of our objectives. A large and gregarious party with plenty of conversation. In fact, the leader always knew how far back the tail was, because it could be heard!

Relatively easy scrub along most of the ridge, with only a couple of tight patches of regrowth. We turned a little to the NE after passing SH1238 and found morning tea just before 10.30am. Nice views from here across the ridge on the other side of Nursery Swamp to Mt Mavis and Mt Herlt. A surprise to be caught munching by an FBI party which included Max S and Peter W. They'd decided on spec to try the same route.

The next bound, SH1289, gave us nice views back to the lower Orroral Valley (see pic 1), to the Gudgenby River valley and the Boboyan Road, and, to the west, the Mavis Ridge. From here the ridge line took us down through a saddle and up towards SH1267.

A couple of hundred metres shy of that objective was the most wonderful open run of granite providing huge views to the SW quadrant. Beneath us was Nursery Swamp (see pic 2 and also here). Behind was the ridge between it and Rendezvous Creek and above that reared the Mavis Ridge with Mt Namadgi seen between Mt Herlt and Mt Mavis (both these local names) (see here). Back along the way we'd come we could see Mt Orroral (see here).

A further 500m or so along the ridge we arrived at the fourth knoll at 12.45pm, our last objective. Time for lunch on the more sheltered SE side, with views down to the Gudgenby River valley towards Glendale Crossing (see here). Towards the end of our break Max and Co caught us again as they'd already stopped for a bite.

Our next leg took us SW then W down to Nursery Swamp, breaking onto it around 2pm (see here). It was all over bar the shouting now. I tried for the arty shot by crawling through the grass (see pic 3) and picked up a series of pics showing the ridge we'd walked (see here). A pleasant stroll back up the SW side of the swamp, eventually picking up the end of the Nursery Swamp Walking Trail. At some stage we saw Max and Co across on the NE side of the swamp. 5.3km in 1hr 20mins back to the cars.

Thanks Rob. A very pleasant wander on a perfect winter's day including a different view of Nursery Swamp. Great company from old and new acquaintances.

Distance: 12.3km  Climb: 550m.  Time: 8.40am - 3.25pm (6hrs 45mins), with 50mins of stops.
Grading: M/R,X; M(11)

KMZ file for Google Earth/Maps: Ridge East of Nursery Swamp