The Gundabooka Range from the lookout.
It was around 11am when I set off from Dry Tank Camp to walk up to the Little Mountain Lookout and even though summer was long gone the temperature was still pushing 30˚ this morning. With the prospect of a trudge through the midday heat along with a hill climb in the middle of the walk Sam decided to stay in the ute, which was parked in a nice shady spot in a copse of Mulga Trees. So setting off solo I wasn't planning on mucking around too much on this stroll, however before I'd even walked out of sight of the ute that plan was out the window when I again tweaked my left calf muscle - yes the same injury that had me taking pain killers on my Seven Dials Walk in the Grampians a week ago...fuck!
The trail head at Dry Tank Camp.
Leaving the camp things started off fairly low key.
Weaving my way through the Mulga.
So now it was more of a matter of shuffling along slowly trying not to stretch my calf muscle too much. The good news for me was that the track crossed a large flat plain for the first couple of kilometres and with the track meandering along beneath a canopy of Mulga and occasionally Kurrajong Trees I had a bit of shade to take the edge off the midday heat. This walking track looks like it's graded by a small ditch witch towing a grader blade or something similar so it made for pretty easy strolling (which was just as well).
There is a bit of pastural history here.
I think the bridge might be a little on the optimistic side!
There are some nice Kurrajong Trees scattered around.
There's even a convenient bench (you can just see it in the shot) halfway up the climb.
When the sandy country started to get a little stony it meant that the track was starting the climb up Little Mountain. While this climb is less than 60 metres and it pretty well has steps all the way up (there is even a bench halfway) it was still enough to stretch my calf muscle. Arriving at the small lookout and picnic table at the end of the track I dropped my pack for awhile whilst I took in the view. The view here features the Gundabooka Range looming above another Mulga covered plain and while the view was pretty sweet I'm thinking sunset would be the go here - it would be easily possible to walk back to Dry Tank Camp by torch light I think. For me though it was time to once again grab my pack and shuffle back to the ute, interestingly my calf hurts when I'm going up or down hill so the descent back off Little Mountain was as painful as the climb.
Little Mountain Lookout.
The Gundabooka Range.
The Gundabooka Range from Little Mountain Lookout.
I'm thinking off piste walking is a real possibility here.
Dropping off Little Mountain and heading back down to the Dry Tank Camp.
The Dirt.
According to my GPS I walked around 5.6 kilometres and climbed about 59 metres on this easy stroll. Gundabooka National Park would generally be a bit hot for walking over summer I think and if anyone reading this wants to visit then maybe plan for the cooler months - even this visit in mid April was a little marginal. Dry Camp is one of the designated camps in Gundabooka National Park as well as being the starting spot for this stroll - there are great facilities out here (considering it's in the middle of nowhere!) which include toilets, bbq's, tanks and picnic shelters and tables. I found this walk on the NSW Parks site and then downloaded a map from Alltrails, I also used my GPS topos on this stroll.
Relevant Posts.
We had some company on our way back up to Bourke.
This bloke was pretty intent on keeping us behind him - I'm in the spoon drain here trying to get past after following him for around 3 kilometres.
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