Tinderry Peak

The day after we hiked up Tinderry Twin Peak we hiked up Tinderry Peak. The most common route appears to be along Round Flat FT for a couple of kilometres to a point where the FT makes a 90 degree turn to the east. An old road bed marked “closed for revegetation” continues roughly north. The commonest route appears to be along this old road bed towards Roberts Creek and then up onto an east facing spur ridge and thereafter to the top.

The Ballroom with Tinderry Peak behind

Instead of following this route, we decided to walk an extra three kilometres along the FT (joining East Tinderry FT) until we were due east of Tinderry Peak and bushwack straight west to the top. Australian bushwacking is often as slow as 1 to 1.5 kilometres/an hour (sometimes less) so we figured we could gain a couple of hundred metres of elevation gain at least as quickly on a FT and reduce the amount of overall bushwacking. Given how slow and thick some of the bushwacking was, this seemed like a sensible choice. Additionally, but unknown to us when planning the trip, an old road bed leads west from East Tinderry FT for 750 metres to the head of Groggy Creek thus reducing the bushwacking distance even further.

Tinderry Peak Summit

A pig trap marks the end of the old road bed and the best and quickest route to the top of Tinderry Peak is to head west up a gentle draw/gully to a spot just north of a closed contour (1540 metres, GR067468). The closed contour is a big area of large slabs and boulders. I called it “The Ballroom” as once on top, a big flat expanse of slab gives views to the south and north to Tinderry Peak. However, thick brush and lots of scrambling over, under and around boulders surrounds The Ballroom. It’s nice to visit once, but much quicker to avoid the boulders by staying slightly to the north.

The flat terrain on the way to Tinderry Peak is thick in places but, near the top, older forest is open underneath and another small draw leads to a saddle of boulders and slabs just south of the very top. It is an easy scramble north along boulders to the top where there is another NPWS log book, although with much fewer entries than the one on Tinderry Twin Peak. The view is better than Tinderry Twin and is a full 360 view right out to the Main Ranges with, on this day, snow covering the tops. From the peak you can see that Tinderry Nature Reserve is an island of native forest surrounded by farm land. The round trip distance to Tinderry Peak isn’t all that far (maybe 18 kilometres all up) and the elevation gain under 1000 metres but the travel at times is quite slow. For the second day in a row we were wondering if we were going to get back to the trail head before dark.