Stage 4: Kambah Pool to Dairy Farmer's Hill

Stage 4
Wednesday 2016 04 06
Kambah Pool to Dairy Farmer's Hill
29.05km, 1155m ascent
(Corresponds to parts of Section 6 and Section 5.)

Jo wasn't available on the Saturday and I went with the club to Serenity Rock on Sunday. On Monday, I had an appointment, and Tuesday I helped Jo and her friend clean out the friend's son's house for a new tenant.

I'd forgotten that the Easy Wednesday walk was Red Rocks Gorge, retracing part of my route from Friday. I expected to set off about 7:30, but it was nearly 8:30 by the time we got to Kambah Pool and checked out the other end and stuff. So there they all were. I had a little yarn with one of the easy walkers and headed off.

I was not looking forward to the 6km slog up Kambah Pool Road, but it was not as bad as I'd feared, although almost entirely exposed, and I ended up leaving the trail after only about 3km to climb MacQuoid's Hill. According to the Canberra Nature Park map, there's a pedestrian entrance at the very southwestern corner of the reserve, but I didn't know that and ripped my shorts on a barbed wire fence. What's worse is that it was such an easy fence – and I was consequently careless.

View west from MacQuoid's Hill

Arawang Trig

The country is pretty bare, so I just made a beeline for Mt Arawang,
where I stopped for morning tea. I think I picked up the trail at the bottom and followed it along Cooleman Ridge to the Trig, which is off the trail. Much of the way, Chapman is nearby. I left the trail again to ascend Narrabundah Hill, where I stopped for lunch and returned to the trail past Duffy. I left the trail again at Cotter Road to climb Mt Stromlo. I was out of water at this point and was looking forward to refilling my bottles, and possibly a coffee, at the top. After wandering around for quite a while, I found a working standpipe. Eventually, I got the bright idea of looking the cafe up and surprise, surprise...'permanently closed'.

Narrabundah Trig

Stromlo Trig

After descending the east side of Stromlo, I eventually found Stromlo Forest Park. The trail between Cotter Road and the Arboretum is marked as 'Short term alignment' on the CCT map. I didn't see any CCT markers leading away from the big information sign with the map. I considered skirting Wright and Coombs on the north, but was concerned about crossing the river. I ended up walking along a cyclepath adjacent to Cotter Road along the south side of Molonglo until I spotted a firetrail heading northwards, east of Coombs. That took me directly to a causeway across the river and into the outer reaches of the Arboretum. With the benefit of hindsight, I'd probably have done better following my instincts, and bypassing Stromlo Forest Park entirely. But I was interested to see what was there – basically cycling facilities, apparently not used on a Wednesday afternoon. I once saw a coffee van there, but that was at the weekend. From there, the obvious route is actually more or less directly NE through the Molonglo suburbs to the firetrail heading north on the opposite side of Coombs. Having gone all the way back to Cotter Road, the route I ended up taking is probably best, certainly preferable to taking Lady Denman Drive across Scrivener Dam, as shown on the map.

The firetrails through the Arboretum are not the most direct route to Dairy Farmer's Hill, but at this stage, I just followed them until I got within about a kilometre of the top and rang Jo, asking her to pick me up in 15 minutes. As I neared the base of the hill, it occurred to me to ring and ask her to meet me at the entrance and save the hill for the next day, but reckoned she'd be driving and couldn't answer her phone anyway, and somehow made it to the top, on time.