Thursday 1 September 2022

Donna, Glenn and Mary in deep discussion

Up hill with determination

Down hill with dexterity

Dressed for Spring

Down and up through a creek

Donna leads the way

One of the creek crossings

Gay resting at one of the (many) creek crossings

Nice of someone to have left a chair!

Regrouping after a climb

Rob heading into Snake Gully

Mary & Donna

Photos courtesy of Amanda, Tom, Mary, Peter and Karen McL

Ten walkers set out on the first day of spring for a new walk in the Wandera State Forest. The walk initially followed bike tracks, winding up and down some gullies, before tackling various ridges in this mountain range just to the west of Moruya.

Whilst it was a lovely sunny day after so much bleak weather, the novelty soon wore off as it became hotter and the hills ascents started in earnest. The irony of the walk name, Duntroon Road, was not lost on a few as it was starting to feel that we were pushing out drills at Duntroon military college!

This area has quite a prevalence of spring flowers during the season and it was nice to see the very early signs of this beginning. Hardenbergia and various pea flowers are just starting to appear. As known, almost all of the area in our region was affected by the 2019/2020 fires and the Wandera State Forest is no exception. The regrowth is prolific and has completely erased the views that were once available from the ridge lines.

Morning tea and lunch were strategically timed after hill ascents but there was no avoiding the final slog up Eastern Boundary Road. Fortunately, if a little too late in everyone’s opinion, cloud cover arrived for that ascent and we were able to make it back to the cars in one piece with the same amount of walkers that began. Always a bonus in my books!

Donna