Hill Walking

They are only hills with a scant 200 metre rise above the valley floor, but still I wanted to walk up all of them. Proof, if you needed it yet again, that peak baggers never die, they just do smaller objectives. We were in the ACT for a few activities, including one of our very rare social events, and I wanted to do something on the day we drove up that minimised driving. Going up hills and minimising driving are two things I will always try to do!

Goorooyarroo Nature Reserve is just off the Federal Highway, very close to our afternoon birthday event and has hills and open forest and grassland. Goorooyarroo abuts Mulligans Flats and is enclosed by sturdy fencing to protect reintroduced mammals from predators. There are only a few places to enter and exit via big gates. We entered via Horse Park Drive which Google Maps mysteriously listed as being closed on Sundays. The Nature Reserve that is, not Horse Park Drive.

There are five hills you can walk up in a circuit, the rest of the terrain being quite flat. This is old farmland and there are mysterious fences everywhere that don’t keep anything in or out but just seem like relics. The topographic map only shows a fraction of the tracks. We also had the map from All Trails which was useful but you could also follow your nose as the terrain is simple and the forest open with lots of grassland.

The first hill is Gecko Hills, immediately after you enter the nature reserve, then you can walk north along a fence-line (reserve boundary) to Old Joe Hill (the tallest). We made a mistake here and walked directly west downhill from Old Joe Hill to the valley – my excuse is that it was very windy on top and hard to see the map – which meant we missed the shortest, least elevation gain, probably most pleasant (apart from the wind) route north from Old Joe Hill to Gooroo Hill. In the valley when I saw this, I walked north again to walk up Gooroo Hill while Doug, who does not share my obsession, walked back to the Floatel via Sammys Hill.

From Gooroo Hill, Sammys Hill is evident across the little valley and it is an easy walk to the top. Heading south I encountered numerous fence-lines and two echidnas before walking up the last hill, Black Stump Hill with the big stump easily visible from the car park. All of the high points have either a standard trig (Old Joe Hill) or three yellow posts, which must mark something, although I’m not sure what.