Tidbinbilla Nature Reserve: Tidbinbilla Mountain

General Information

Grading: hard

Distance:  7.3 kilometers 

Total climb:  640 meters 

Time taken:  4 hours 45 minutes 

Map:  Tidbinbilla 8627-2S, 1:25 000 

Start point distance by road from Canberra GPO:  52 kilometers 

Start point map grid reference:  55H FA 71471 74628 

Destination map grid reference:  55H FA 69509 75951 

End point:  same as start

Route

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

Description

This walk started at the Mountain Creek carpark in the Tidbinbilla Nature Reserve. We started by walking up the Camelback Firetrail and then on to the Lyrebird Trail, which we followed up to a point at grid reference 55H FA 70938 74643. Here there is an indistinct and unmarked foot track on the right. This started us on a long, uphill climb by a fairly direct route to Tidbinbilla Mountain.

The first point of note on the climb was at around 1240 meters elevation where there is a small lookout with a couple of benches. This gave some views back into the Tidbinbilla Valley...

... and towards Mt Domain.

Having taken a break there, we continued up another 200 meters in elevation where the track flattens and veers right towards Snowy Corner. Walking along the track here we had our first real glimpse of our destination. We also encountered the first of two snakes (either a Brown or a Tiger - who can tell?) sunning themselves on the track. After a brief stand-off while we glared at each other, the snake eventually slithered off when we started to move around to pass it.

From Snowy Corner the track curves around to the left up the ridge to the top of the mountain. Maybe only 50 meters from the summit we found the second snake, in this case almost certainly a Brown, with the same result: a staring competition followed by a reluctant serpentine retreat. Near the summit there was a clearing with some wildflowers still in bloom.

The summit of Tidbinbilla Mountain gives unobstructed views all around.

After a lunch break on the summit we headed back down the foot track, being particularly careful in the areas where we had seen the snakes (I had recorded these places on my GPS navigator). Luckily they were nowhere to be seen. After a steep, and in some places treacherous descent we made it back to the Lyrebird Trail (although there was an inevitable navigation error just before we reached it). Just for a bit of variety we went down the un-walked section of the Lyrebird Trail back to the carpark.