Stromlo Forest Park to Tuggeranong Town Centre, Centenary Trail - December 2020

Red Rocks Gorge on the Murrumbidgee River.

I'd been looking forward to day 5 on the Centenary Trail for the whole walk, today I'd walk not only the Cooleman Ridge but also the Murrumbidgee River. So needless to say I was in a good headspace when Sam dropped me off on Eucumbene Drive near Stromlo Forest Park this morning. My good mood continued as I walked the grassy road side verge south beside Eucumbene Drive passing by the last of the houses before climbing onto the Cooleman Ridge.

Conditions were a little grey and overcast again first thing this morning.

Initially I climbed the roadside verge again beside Eucumbene Drive...

... passing by the houses of Duffy. Black Mountain was looking a lot further away again now.

Once on Cooleman Ridge the walking was pretty easy and the views were fairly extensive, with the bigger mountains in Namadgi National Park cloaked in cloud this morning. The track along Cooleman Ridge sometimes looked like it was following an old water race, although a water race near the top of a ridge is fairly unusual, whatever the case it was nice walking. After passing by a couple of water tanks on the ridge I arrived at Mt Arawang at the end of the ridge, instead of climbing this hill I now forked left and followed the Centenary Trail back down into the suburbs again, turning right onto Namatjira Drive. 

The bigger mountains around Canberra were cloaked in cloud first thing this morning.

Nice walking along the Cooleman Ridge section of the Centenary Trail.

It looked like I was following an old water race at one stage.

The views from Cooleman Ridge were pretty sweet.

Cooleman Ridge wildlife.

Cooleman Ridge

The Centenary Trail on Cooleman Ridge.

One last view from Cooleman Ridge.

While the Cooleman Ridge section was one of the best so far on the Centenary Trail the next section from Chapman down to Kambah Pool was one of the shittiest. The Centenary Trail now followed the grassy road side verge all the way down to the Murrumbidgee River and having a sometimes fairly busy bitumen road beside me all the way was a little sub-optimal I thought. After following the very busy Namatjira Drive for 15 minutes I turned right onto the slightly less busy Kambah Pool Road and started a fairly long and gentle descent. After turning south along Kambah Pool Road I crossed the road and picked up an old footpath running behind the back fence of some suburban houses which I followed down until I arrived at the Murrumbidgee Country Club. From here I pretty well walked the rough and grassy verge between the golf course and Kambah Pool Road all the way until I arrived down at the Kambah Pool Reserve. 

 

Namatjira Drive in Chapman.

The Centenary Trail follows various grassy pads beside Kambah Pool Road as it drops down to the Murrumbidgee River.

The Kambah Pool trail head - time for smoko:)

Arriving at the car park at the end of Kambah Pool Road I resisted the temptation to head down to the river for a skinny dip with my nudist brothers and sisters, instead preferring a nice soft rock in the shade (no that's not a euphemism!) to enjoy my lunch on. Over the last three days the forecast had been for cloudy and overcast conditions with showers, however while each day had started off a little overcast by lunchtime the sun would come out and things would heat up and today was no different in that regard. After having a bit of a break in the car park at the end of Kambah Pool Road watching the comings and goings from this fairly busy spot, I grabbed my pack again and set off towards Tuggeranong.

The Murrumbidgee River up stream of Kambah Pool.

This section of the Centenary Trail is another one of those flowy walking / mountain bike tracks.

The day had heated up a bit now so any shade was pretty welcome.

The next section of the Centenary Trail was another good one. The track now mostly contoured high above Murrumbidgee River for the next 6 or 7 kilometres although the open forest meant that there was plenty of opportunities for water views as I shuffled my way up stream. This bit of the walk was similar to the northern border section in that the track builders have spent a lot of time building a fairly flowy track without any super steep gradients to cater for mountain bikes (and fat old walkers!).

Red Rocks Gorge Lookout.

  There are plenty of places to view the river apart from the signposted lookout.

Murrumbidgee River

The Centenary Trail in the Bullen Range Nature Reserve.

Thirty minutes after leaving Kanbah Pool I arrived at the short side track out to Red Rocks Gorge Lookout  so I headed out for a squiz. Red Rocks Gorge is arguably the most scenic spot along this section of the Murrumbidgee and the view from the lookout is OK, however the views were actually better from the track a little further towards Tuggeranong I thought. Rather than retrace my way back from the lookout I took an old and rougher pad that intersected the Centenary Trail a little further east before resuming shuffling my way towards Tuggeranong. 

Looking across the Murrumbidgee River Gorge towards the distant mountains.

The Centenary Trail in Bullen Range Nature Reserve.

I'm thinking that some of the land within the Bullen Range Nature Reserve is re-claimed farmland.

The Centenary Trail

Getting closer to Tuggeranong the gorge / valley started to open up a bit.

The river views continued, only now I was getting views of the shiny high rise building in Tuggeranong too. The Centenary Trail now started passing through what looks like some re-claimed farmland and I occasionally arced away from the river a fair distance before finally I arrived at the old bridge over the Casuarina lined Tuggeranong Creek. After ringing Sam to let her know that I was almost finished I followed the Murrumbidgee River for a few more minutes before arriving at the historic Tuggeranong Stone Wall. The old stone wall is in need of a bit of love and weed killer I think and after making a fairly desultory attempt to get a photo I shuffled off on my climb up to Tuggeranong. Climbing out of a grassy gully I suddenly found myself on the busy Athllan Drive in Tuggeranong and my days walking was as good as over as I headed for Tuggeranong Town Park on the banks of Lake Tuggeranong to wait for Sam.

The Casuarina lined Tuggeranong Creek.

The Centenary Trail crosses Tuggeranong Creek at this old weir.

Sharing the track with the Bicentennial National Trail.

The historic Tuggeranong Stone Wall.

The Dirt.

I walked 22.7 kilometres today and climbed 411 metres on what I'd call a medium grade days walking. Over the five days of my Centenary Trail Walk so far I've walked around 117.5 kilometres and climbed around 2587 metres.  The Centenary Trail today was a mixed bag really, the crappy section alongside Kambah Pool Road bookended by the nice section along Cooleman Ridge and the Murrumbidgee River section. Navigation today was a lot clearer than yesterday although the more urban the landscape the more I had to concentrate on my map. I used the notes and maps out of the Woodslane book Walking & Cycling Canberra's Centenary Trail by Nina Hvoslef & Tallis Didcott, along with my GPS topos today.

Relevant Posts.

Centenary Trail, Previous Day, 2020.

Centenary Trail, Day 1, 2020.

Unfortunately this was as far as I got on the Centenary Trail on this visit. After Sam picked me up in Tuggeranong we were listening to yet another Covid news conference on the radio when we heard that our state government was going to close the border to New South Wales, while our Christmas trip up to southern New South Wales and the Australian Capital Territory was always planned with the idea that we would only ever be a few hours drive from the border it meant getting home wasn't too much of an issue. What was a little surprising was announcing it at a presser in the late afternoon on New Years Eve which seemed to catch a lot of people out. We had around 7 hours to get back to the hotel in Canberra, have a quick feed, pack up, check out, fuel the ute up and then get over the border so it wasn't too bad for Sam and I... however I'm a strange unit and I'd spent my days on holiday's listening to ABC News Radio so I was all over the situation, a lot of others weren't so lucky. 

I'm thinking if travel and tourism is going to survive then our state governments need to be clear about the thresholds for closing borders, if the threshold is x amount of cases in a local government area then at least you could monitor the situation. The situation here was that the nearest Covid case to us was hundreds of kilometres away and the situation hadn't changed - what had changed is there was an outbreak near our home back in Melbourne which was thought to have come down from up in Sydney. So ironically we had to evacuate from an area that hadn't (and months later still hasn't) had any community spread of Covid and return home immediately to an area with community spread less than 20 kilometres away. As I'm writing this our state government has introduced a traffic light system of restrictions however there still isn't any published figures or logic to what it will take to change the traffic lights from Green to Yellow and Red which I think is what's needed to restore some kind of confidence. To be honest though I think all of our different branches of governments in Australia have done a pretty good job of keeping us safe during the pandemic so far, so I  don't want to be too negative.

From the old stone wall I left the Murrumbidgee River and climbed up to Tuggeranong.

My last few metres on the Centenary Trail (for now) were very pleasant.

Climbing the embankment to meet Athllon Drive in Tuggeranong my day was pretty well finished - and as it turned out so was my Centenary Trail walk!

Yes, heading back to our hotel in Canberra I was listening to a news conference on ABC News Radio and found out that we only had around 7 hours to get back into Victoria before the government closed the border and we'd have to quarantine for 2 weeks - needless to say we made it back safely. When our snap border restrictions settle down a bit I'll head back up to Canberra and walk the last section of the Centenary Trail and stick a link in at the bottom of this post.