2019 11 21 Arboretum Walk with MelbaShed
This was a 6.5Km walk taking 2hrs 57mins for a circular route from Dairy Farmers Hill, National Arboretum, Canberra, Australia along various trails to STEP, Himalayan Cedars, the Village Centre and numerous forest plantations. This was Melba Shed walk No 218 on 21st Nov 2019
Featured image – Guys including Greg at statue of a Miner at the junction of tracks 2 & 3
I led this walk with 8 walking.
6 of us met at the Shed by just after 7.30AM and drove in two cars to Dairy Farmers Hill in the Arboretum where we met two more.
The from 8.02AM we walked down and around on a small track (4a) through an old pine forest and out into the open fields west of Dairy Farmers Hill until we joined a new track 4 which then continued north. On the way couple of us helped fix a broken irrigation pipe by bringing its attention to nearby arboretum workers
We then continued over to the STEP (Southern Tablelands Ecosystems Park), actually forest 20 on the map. It was a special area granted by previous Chief Minister Stanhope to highlight local native plant species & to enable an education focus for the future generations. Here we talked to a couple of the volunteers. Amazingly we talked to an old teacher John Marsh had previously had at the Uni of Canberra named David Shorthouse. David with his vampire teeth held our attention and told us about their efforts to grow a lot of local native bush tucker based on a book about Ngunnawal edible local plants. He even pointed us at a shrub that produced flowers that smelt & tasted like chocolate. Later on we smelt a plant near the entrance to the Village Centre that smelt like Curry.
From the STEP we went up track 3 then track 2 to the Himalayan Cedars plantation then back to track 3 and on to the Village Centre for coffee, milk shake and some snacks. From the Village Centre we visited the Discovery Garden then took the track 5 past Purple Smoke Bush (Cotinus ‘grace’) plantation No 49 back to Dairy Farmers Hill with its several items such as the Eagles Nest, Sundial and superb lookout.
This was an Easy-Medium walk of 6.5km taking 2 hrs 57min total incl a 25 mins stop in the Village centre. The day had started out nice but was getting hot by the time we finished ie 32C and with 39c for later in the day.
Walkers: Bob Salmond, Brian Taylor, David Ruthven, Harry Angel, John Marsh, Neville Viney, Peter Coppin, Greg Hutchison | Drivers: Peter Coppin, Harry Angel, Neville, Brian
Map of walk | More pictures in Google Photos | files including gps located in Google Drive
Notes re Map: GPS map views provided using Garmin Basecamp with map base from OSM an open source service | The area of the walk is covered by the NSW 1:25,000 topo map CANBERRA. The Arboretum has a lot of new paths and tracks. See their map online
