Meryla State Forest: The Top of Bundanoon Gorge

General Information

Grading: easy

Distance: 8.8 kilometers 

Total climb: 158 meters 

Time taken: 2 hours 20 minutes

Map: Bundanoon 8928-1S 1:25 000 

Start point distance by road from Canberra GPO:  163 kilometers

Start point map grid reference:  56H KG 57554 64299

Destination:   First Lookouts 56H KG 56930 63203

                      Second Lookout 56H KG 57586 63136

                      Third Lookout 56H KG 58602 63645

                      Fourth Lookout 56H KG 59358 64040

End Point:  Same as start

 

Route

 

Description 

 

This walk is through a quiet corner of Meryla State Forest near the village of Exeter in the Southern Highlands. The walk used to be around the perimeter of a pine forest, but the pines have now all been harvested, probably after the 2020 bushfire. Unfortunately this means that the left hand side of the track throughout the walk is pretty ugly...

 

 

...so it's all about the lookouts over Bundanoon Gorge.

 

The start of the walk is at the end of Rosedale Road, before the entry to Filbert's Farm. There are “no parking” signs along Rosedale Road, so we had to cross over into the State Forest area; easy to find because there are no fences there. You can pretty much park anywhere, but we decided to find a shady spot off to the left and round a sharp bend.

We followed a counter-clockwise route around the management trail that borders the former pine forest. Along this trail it's just a matter of looking for minor tracks on the right, which invariably led to lookouts. The first lookout was over the Stonequarry Creek Gorge, but the remainder were all over Bundanoon Gorge, which became narrower as we progressed. Plenty of great views from all lookouts, but be aware that there are no protective barriers and it's a long way down...

To return to our starting point we just continued around in a loop around the former pine forest.

Barren Gounds Nature Reserve: Cooks Nose and the Natural Stone Bridge

General Information

Grading: easy

Distance: 10 kilometers 

Total climb: 239 meters 

Time taken: 2 hours 50 minutes

Map: Kangaroo Valley 9028-4S 1:25 000 

Start point distance by road from Canberra GPO:  200 kilometers

Start point map grid reference:  56H KG 90433 60727

Destination:  Cooks Nose 56H KG 88801 58583

                      Natural Stone Bridge 56H KG 91044 59371

End Point:  Same as start

 

Route

 

 

Description 

 

Barren Grounds Nature Reserve is to the south of Jamberoo Mountain Road, about 14 kilometers from the Illawarra Highway (at the Robertson Pie Shop).

 

This walk commenced at the Barren Grounds Picnic Area, about 1 kilometer to the right off Jamberoo Mountain Road. There are two trailheads at the Picnic Ground, but both are well signposted.

Naturally we followed the trail to Cooks Nose at the southern end of the Picnic Area. This took us initially through some flat, fairly open terrain with many varieties of wildflower still in bloom.

The trail starts to go up and down a bit after a while and is quite rocky.

Eventually we came to a walking track off to the right which took us to Cooks Nose, and some very good views into the Brogers Creek and Lamonds Creek gorges, and down towards Kangaroo Valley in the distance.

After taking in the views for a while we headed back the way we had come, but turned off at the Stone Bridge sign to have a look at the natural stone bridge about 1 kilometer away. The stone bridge itself is interesting without being spectacular, but the area around it (Lamonds Creek) is quite nice despite many mosquitos coming to feed on me.

After a break down by the Creek we retraced our steps back to our starting point.

Gibbergunyah Reserve

General Information

Grading: easy

Distance: 6.9 kilometers 

Total climb: 307 meters 

Time taken: 2 hours 30 minutes

Map: Mittagong 8929-2S 1:25 000 

Start point distance by road from Canberra GPO:  175 kilometers

Start point map grid reference:  56H KG 62016 85533

Destination:  none

End Point:  Same as start

 

Route

 

 

Description 

Gibbergunyah is a small reserve that sits between Mittagong and Bowral. It can be accessed from either town, but we started our walk from the Mittagong side. The access point is a locked gate on Howards Way, about 4 kilometers west of the centre of Mittagong. There is a sign here with a map of the walking tracks in the Reserve, and it's a good idea to take a picture of it before setting out. It should be noted that there is traffic noise from the nearby Hume Motorway on the Mittagong side of the Reserve, so this really isn't a walk for people who like the quiet sounds of the bush.

We started up the walking track to the right of the locked gate (shown in yellow on the guide map) and gradually climbed through forest until it met the Gang Gang Track. There were still plenty of wildflowers about, even though it was (notionally) Summer.

 

We followed the Gang Gang track to the right until we came to a walking trail on the right leading up to Ninety Acre Hill lookout, which has limited views to the northwest.

Returning to  Gang Gang Track, we followed it to the end and turned left onto Goanna Track, which we followed around until it turned sharply left. Here we left  Goanna Track and followed a walking trail down into a rainforest gully.

Unfortunately we found the trail a bit difficult to follow and soon lost it altogether. We were able to bush bash our way out of the gully and back to the Gang Gang Track, which we followed back to our starting point.