This walk was organised and led by me as an irregular CBC Tuesday walk:
Tuesday 1 September: Mt Woolpack and Roberts Creek - L/M,X. In via Round Flat fire trail, East Tinderry ft, Woolpack ft to Mt Woolpack. Out via some of Roberts Creek ft and back up Roberts Creek to Round Flat. Around 20km and 600m climb. Map: Tinderry. Limit of 8. Leader: John Evans – jevans@pcug.org.au, (h) 6288 7235. Transport: ~$10. Further details at http://jevans.pcug.org.au.
6 of us met at Kambah and drove down the Cooma Road to Michelago. Then via Burra Road and Tinderry Road to the start of the Round Flat fire trail.
Walk
A lovely day for the 1st of Spring. If one has to walk fire trail, then this is the right time of the year to do so, soft and fresh after yesterday's rain. A little boring and more up than we'd all imagined. In along the Round Flat fire trail, N onto the East Tinderry fire trail and E onto the Woolpack fire trail. At this last junction Max posed in the large pig trap for a boar-ish photo opposite a stark tree skeleton (see pic 1). From this knoll we could see our objective. We passed the top of the Roberts Creek fire trail and onto near SH1297 where we enjoyed morning tea. Views down to the cleared farming area between Roberts Creek and the Tinderry Road. A wombat scuttled from the edge of the fire trail.
Pressing on up and over a knoll or two, which provided splendid view behind the the bumps of the Tinderry Range, we came within sight of our objective. Beginning the climb up it cleared flanks, our party was split by a couple of wild pigs running through us. One party member was glad to have a nearby tree as the tusks lumbered past. A grand view from the gentle top of Mt Woolpack, its summit marked by a natural cairn (see pic 2). A panorama shot, so horizontal scroll unless you have a 2300 pixel wide monitor. Can you see the little face Kaz added to the termite mound? Apart from the view shown down to Roberts Creek and the Tinderrys, to the E we gazed across the Queanbeyan River valley with Mt Tumanang prominent above it in the Tallaganda National Park.
Too early for lunch, we changed our planned route slightly and wandered down the open flanks of the hill. A pretty drainage line, with a fern or two, led us to Roberts Creek. Here we crossed to the S bank and sauntered along to find lunch. The frogs serenaded us.
We remained on the S side of the creek for the next 4km, mostly between a new fence (hopefully defining the NR, even though the map shows the border on the N side of the creek) and the creek. Pretty easy walking. A wedge-tailed eagle soared at one point.
Eventually we picked up the S end of the East Tinderry fire trail (see pic 3), wandered up 400m to its junction with the Round Flat fire trail and retraced our steps to the car.
A pleasant enough wander to a new destination with ok views. Thanks for your company Eric G, Ian S, Kaz C, Ken W and Max S.
Distance: 19km Climb: 600m. Time: 8.30am - 2.45pm (6hrs 15mins), with 50mins of stops.
Grading: L/M,X; M(11)
KMZ file for Google Earth/Maps: Mt Woolpack and Roberts Creek
