Tidbinbilla Nature Reserve: Fishing Gap

General Information

Distance:  8 kilometers
Total climb:  320 meters
Time taken:  1 hour 50 minutes
Map:  Tidbinbilla 8627-2S 1:25 000
Guide:  link
Start point distance by road from Canberra GPO:  50 kilometers
Start point map grid reference:  55H FA 72303 71966
Destination map grid reference:  55H FA 69893 71016
End Point:  Same as start

Route

http://maps.six.nsw.gov.au/

Description

This walk starts at the Fishing Gap carpark on the Tidbinbilla Ring Road. It follows a pleasant enough management trail up to the southwestern corner of the Tidbinbilla Nature Reserve.





There are not too many views to be seen from the trail, but every now and then something can be glimpsed of surrounding peaks through the trees.



Almost exactly 4 kilometers into the walk you reach Fishing Gap, which is the end of the trail right at the border of Namadgi National Park. There is nothing much to see here, although there used to be a track through to Mount Domain in the north and another to the Cotter River in the west. Both of these were overgrown after the 2003 bushfires.



I had a thought of attempting to climb Mount Domain from here, and headed north into the scrub. After about 100 meters of bashing through dense overgrowth and going over or around many large fallen trees, however, I decided that Mount Domain was going to be too much work and headed back to Fishing Gap, from where I retraced my steps to the carpark. While pleasant enough, the track to Fishing Gap is not particularly spectacular and is only a relatively short walk. It would have been better if I could have continued on to either Mount Domain or Cotter River, but the scrub was to dense in both directions.

Update: In mid-2016 a new walking track was cut from Fishing Gap to Mount Domain.