Left early in the day to beat the heat. Part of my plan included a 20k walk if I could find a suitable linkage between two fire-trails. As it turned out, I didn't but it was still a significant hike with lots of altitude change. Of course there was a cache at the end of it, one that had involved 25 prior locations all over Canberra.
As I set off up the heartbreak hill right behind Banks, I realised I hadn't plugged in my final destination coordinates. Luckily, I had enough source data with me to recalculate.
Today was also the first time I tried my iPhone app "Runkeeper". So for company, I had this irritating voice pipe up from my back-pack every so often to tell me how slow I was! She was also heavy on the battery power and I had to recharge the phone with the juice pack round about the half way mark. Still, it is quite useful, it will plot to Google maps my route, average speed, calories etc. If I pay for the elite version, it will actually plot my movements live so burglars would know the best time to pounce.
It was a very pleasant walk, after the initial really steep bit. The later climbs were at least in a partial forest so I had shade. GZ was reached, some 250m of the nearest fire trails, not too far from Rob Roy peak. Spent some 15 minutes at GZ admiring the views, having a snack.
I pushed on to see whether there was a way to climb down to the lower fire-trail. The terrain was too rugged to do it by myself but after looking at maps on my return, I could have stayed on the path for a while longer.
No problems, I returned the way I came, it was nice to walk in the shade where as plan B looked like much walking in the full sun. Returned via Big Monk Trig. The final approach was about 150m through thigh deep thistles. Wouldn't have attempted if I wasn't wearing gators - wouldn't have seen a snake, even if I stood on it! Magnificent views from the Trig then a bit of cross country to rejoin the fire-trail. And that final really steep hill ? It is actually harder to go down than up. All up a just under 11k hike though the dizzy blond in my back-pack thought it was 15K.
As I set off up the heartbreak hill right behind Banks, I realised I hadn't plugged in my final destination coordinates. Luckily, I had enough source data with me to recalculate.
Today was also the first time I tried my iPhone app "Runkeeper". So for company, I had this irritating voice pipe up from my back-pack every so often to tell me how slow I was! She was also heavy on the battery power and I had to recharge the phone with the juice pack round about the half way mark. Still, it is quite useful, it will plot to Google maps my route, average speed, calories etc. If I pay for the elite version, it will actually plot my movements live so burglars would know the best time to pounce.
It was a very pleasant walk, after the initial really steep bit. The later climbs were at least in a partial forest so I had shade. GZ was reached, some 250m of the nearest fire trails, not too far from Rob Roy peak. Spent some 15 minutes at GZ admiring the views, having a snack.
I pushed on to see whether there was a way to climb down to the lower fire-trail. The terrain was too rugged to do it by myself but after looking at maps on my return, I could have stayed on the path for a while longer.
No problems, I returned the way I came, it was nice to walk in the shade where as plan B looked like much walking in the full sun. Returned via Big Monk Trig. The final approach was about 150m through thigh deep thistles. Wouldn't have attempted if I wasn't wearing gators - wouldn't have seen a snake, even if I stood on it! Magnificent views from the Trig then a bit of cross country to rejoin the fire-trail. And that final really steep hill ? It is actually harder to go down than up. All up a just under 11k hike though the dizzy blond in my back-pack thought it was 15K.
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