Stage 5: Dairy Farmer's Hill to Australian Institute of Sport

Stage 5
Thursday 2016 04 07
Dairy Farmer's Hill to Australian Institute of Sport
12.95km, 527m ascent
(Corresponds to parts of Section 5 and Section 4.)

The next day, I hoped to get to Hall, but only made it as far as the Australian Institute of Sport in Bruce before the feet gave out again.

Coming down Dairy Farmer's Hill, I made a mistake and headed straight for the Arboretum gate. I should have picked the trail up at the visitors' centre and left via the cork plantation. That looks like a much nicer route than the one I ended up taking. At the gate, there are CCT markers going in both directions. I ended up following a cyclepath on the wrong side of Parkes Way. When I cut across the nature strip, I made an astonishing discovery! When they spray the blackberries, they die and the leaves fall off, making them much harder to spot in the long grass. The thorns do not fall off.

After somehow negotiating the Glenloch Interchange, I found a way into the park at the SW corner of Black Mountain. I followed a firetrail paralleling Caswell Drive until I came to a clear path heading up the hill, eventually rejoining the trail.

Black Mountain Tower

The signage on top of Black Mountain was again confusing, but I made my way down the east side to Frith Road and just continued on the trail along O'Connor Ridge near the Gungahlin Drive Extension. At one point, there is a sign 'Access to Bruce Ridge', or words to that effect. With the benefit of hindsight, I probably should have gone that way, because a little further up Bruce Ridge is exactly where the trail goes, after meandering all over the Institute of Sport, which, doubtless to it's credit, has coffee at much more reasonable prices than Poppy's.

I finished my tea while I waited for Jo to pick me up.