2020 08 27 Mt Painter – Glenloch – Arboretum – Aranda with MelbaShed

This was a 9.5 Km walk from a parking spot on Bindubi St, south of Aranda within the ACT over to Mt Painter, then across and under William Hovell Drive, through Glenloch grazing property to the National Arboretum, then around the north side of it , through the Cork Oak Plantation, then under William Hovell Drive again and back to the cars though the Aranda Bushland reserve. This was Melba Shed walk No 236 on 27th Aug 2020.

Featured image –  Guys on top of Mt Painter at its trig station

Pictures in Google Photos

This was planned as a circular walk under William Hovell Drive twice.

I led this walk with 6 walking. 3 met at the Shed by 8.30am & & drove to a parking spot on Bindubi St where we met 3 more. Then from 8.52AM we walked up a horse trail to behind Cook and then climbed up Mt Painter on the normal track. We came across some workers who were getting ready to start reconstructing the east trail down from the mountain. We reached the top and because of the mist did not get the best views.

So we went down the steep east trail, then turned right and went down to near William Hovell Drive where climbed one fence and then went under the road, and then turned east and walked down the main road verge for a couple of hundred metres before we could turn into the main entrance to Glenloch and where we had to climb over a post next to the gate. From here we went west a little then followed a fence south & then open ground to reach the Arboretum. As we reached it we came across the STEP volunteers finishing their morning tea.

We then went east so as to climb over a stile. We then stopped at The Clearing in the STEP (Forest 20) and had a short morning break. From the STEP we walked up a path through a couple of forests to join a path that goes around and down through the Himalayan Cedars forest to get us to the Cork Oak plantation. We walked through it then took another underpass under William Hovell Drive and then wound our way up past the Aranda Snow Gums Frost Hollow and continued up and back to the cars which we reached at 12.20PM.

Note the section along William Hovell near Glenloch is a bit scrubby and then across grazing land was private leased land although it is owned by the ACT Govt since 2013. It was purchased for urban development.

A Medium walk of 9.5Km taking 3hrs 20m.

Walkers: Bob Salmond, Drew McDonald, Harry Angel. Neville Viney, Tony Weir, Greg Hutchison

Drivers: Drew, Neville, Harry, Greg

Map of walk | More pictures in Google Photos | files including gps located in Google Drive | STEP website where you can read all about what they are doing

Notes re Map:  GPS Map View provided using Garmin Basecamp an Open Street Maps Base | The area of the walk is covered by the NSW 1:25,000 topo maps CANBERRA.